The Years With Laura Diaz - Hardcover

Fuentes, Carlos

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374293414 ISBN 13: 9780374293413

Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2000

Synopsis

Born in 1905 Mexico, Laura Dfaz witnesses the Revolution while becoming a politically committed artist, wife, mother, and lover of great men before seeing those she loves fall to the dark forces of corrupt politics. honesty prevails despite the tragedies and losses of her life. 40,000 first printing.

About this title

Review

A millennial novel with centennial breadth, The Years with Laura Diaz follows one woman through the 20th century in Mexico, witnessing its political upheavals, technological advances and bitterly uneven social and artistic progress. Born on her grandfather Don Felipe's coffee plantation at Catemaco in 1898, Laura knows both the privilege of wealth and its limitations. Her parents, Leticia and Fernando, live apart, prudently waiting until Fernando can support his family in the larger town of Veracruz.

In Veracruz, Laura finds a focus for her own youthful longing after the death of her half-brother Santiago, whose clandestine aid to the anarchist-syndicalists led to his execution. She embraces the revolution, and, hoping to avoid the fate of her virgin aunts, marries a solemn, dark-skinned, working-class hero. "The active life was preferable", Laura concluded at the ripe age of 22. For a woman, inevitably, this means "a life committed to another life". A daughter, a wife and then a mother, Laura is more or less dragged along by history. Eventually she must sacrifice not only Santiago but her own son and grandson to the violent game of musical chairs that is Mexican political life. Perhaps because of the almost laughable instability of power in Mexico, Fuentes is compelled to devote much of his narrative energy to explaining the rapid changes of guard--presidential assassinations succeeded by coups followed by questionable elections.

Given the time span and the gravity of occurrences this epic covers, it is no surprise that the character of Laura often seems to stand still while events and people move around her. Because of this, perhaps, The Years with Laura Diaz is not the clearest articulation of Fuentes's historical vision, nor his most moving work. Its emotional power is cumulative, however, and few readers will be able to put the novel down after the first 100 pages. --Regina Marler

Review

A spirited guide to a land shedding its myths and reaching out to modernity. -- Sunday Times

Carlos Fuentes is a master... Laura Diaz is a subtle, comprehensive, witty and (as always with Fuentes) subversive -- Richard Ford

Fuentes blends the personal and the public with an expert hand. -- Sunday Telegraph

Rare and poignant... Fuentes' greatest fiction. A landmark book. -- Scotsman

About this edition

• Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0374293414
• ISBN 13: 9780374293413
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 516