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Nov 05, 2020wyenotgo rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
Franco’s Spain, 1957: a land where bullfighters are the ultimate heroes, where women understand that their purpose in life is to obey, remain silent and above all ask no questions. Where the overarching force is that of miedo: fear. A fear that lingers in the blood; where republicans surviving after the civil war are enslaved and their offspring are removed to be ‘rehabilitated’ — but remain ever suspect. These are people who have come to understand the nature of fear in ways that most of us are unlikely to know: ”Bravery and stupidity are sometimes interchangeable.” ”Yes! But fear brings dimension to our lives. Without fear we will never meet courage.” They have learned that there are far worse things than death and that having faced it all, one’s purpose in life transcends fear of death: Fuga stares into the cracked mirror. He is not frightened. He is not frightened of the bulls. He is not frightened of the breeders. He is not frightened of the Crows. He is not frightened of poverty or hardship. He is not frightened of Franco. Fuga's death came as a child, at the hands of a monster in the boys’ home. He stares at his reflection and begins the internal conversation. It is impossible to kill a man who is already dead. The mirror is broken, but the reflection is intact. Resurrection is impossible, Huérfano. You fight for the forgotten, the abused, the hungry and the unwanted. You fight for your one and only friend, just as he fights for you. Into this airless, closed society, one ruled by an ever-present dictator in partnership with the Catholic Church, where most people struggle to eke out a bare existence, arrive American tourists with their dollars, their profligate lifestyle and their disregard for most of what they see. Not a very promising scenario for an enjoyable novel. But out of this Sepetys not only creates and slowly untangles a web of secrets but also extracts an excellent love story. Her research of Spain’s fascist regime has been extensive, lending her story a highly convincing tone. All of the characters ring true. Perhaps what makes it so compelling is the stark contrast in state of mind between the fear-ridden Spanish populace and the casually carefree Americans. [On a final note, I was struck by the significant part played by photographs in this story, and how a brilliantly executed photo can convey so much depth of meaning, transcending the most carefully chosen words. By a stroke of serendipity, I just now happened to be studying (those who have read it will understand my choice of that word) Langston Hughes’ brief, brilliant poem “My People” as conveyed in pictures in his collaboration with photographer Charles R Smith Jr. It would require a book of prose ten times as thick to achieve what those two gentlemen do in just 30 magnificent pages.] As she did in "Salt to the Sea", Sepetys has seamlessly integrated a fictional human drama into a solidly drawn historical setting. Well done.