The Years with Laura Diaz - Softcover

Fuentes, Carlos

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0747557667 ISBN 13: 9780747557661

Publisher: Bloomsbury Paperbacks, 2002

Synopsis

Like Fuentes's masterpiece THE DEATH OF ARTEMIO CRUZ, the action in this new novel begins in the state of Veracruz and moves to Mexico City. Now the principal figure Fuentes's first female protagonist, the extraordinary Laura Diaz. From 1905 to 1978 Fuentes traces Laura Diaz; a life filled with a multitude of witty, heartbreaking scenes and the sounds and colours, tastes and scents of Mexico. Laura grows into a politically committed artist who is also a wife and mother, a lover of great men, and a complicated and alluring heroine whose bravery prevails despite her losing a brother, son, and grandson to the darkest forces of Mexico's turbulent, often corrupt politics. Hers is a life which has helped to affect the course of history, and it is the story of a woman who has loved and understood with unflinching honesty.

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: Bloomsbury Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0747557667
• ISBN 13: 9780747557661
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 528