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Retribution (Women’s Press Literacy $22.95)
Carmen Rodriguez' Retribution (Women's Press Literacy $22.95) takes the form of three memoirs by a daughter, mother and grandmother. Whereas the grandmother Soledad was once convinced to vote for a right-wing candidate in Chile, her daughter Sol joined the resistance movement against the dictator Pinochet and was tortured for nine months.
The threesome arrives in Vancouver in 1974 as refugees. Sol's child Tania is a newborn. The grandmother recalls:
"As much as I wanted to pretend that I didn't care about Chile anymore, it didn't take me long to realize that when you leave your country behind, you don't really leave your country behind. It haunts you, it teases you, it plays tricks on you; it shows up at every corner, in every street; in the wind, in the clouds. It doesn't leave you alone. Your past plays in your head over and over again, like a movie that you already know by heart, but cannot stop watching.";
During their first weeks at the Cove Motor Inn in English Bay, a one-star transit hotel operated by the Canadian government, her daughter Sol tells her, "The baby's father is my torturer."; (Rodriguez has given the reader some foreknowledge of this, near the outset.) Soledad, the grandmother, explodes with hatred:
"I hated Pinochet. I hated my son's murderer. I hated my sister for having turned my daughter in. I hated my daughter's torturer. I hated my daughter for giving birth to the torturer's baby and I hated baby Tania. But above all I hated myself for not having known to live my life to the fullest when I was young; for not having accepted and loved my son for who he was; for having disapproved of my children's political views; for not having appreciated what I had. I hated myself for being alive and not having the guts to end it all and leave this world once and for all.";
The grandmother rallies herself and becomes involved in the solidarity movement of Chilean exiles and refugees in Vancouver, but the title Retribution arises from the tortured daughter Sol's resolve to take revenge by breaking the legacy of cruelty and hate, by re-inventing love.
[Carmen Rodriguez is not to be confused with Chilean-born playwright Carmen Aguirre, also of Vancouver, whose memoir of political resistance in Chile, Something Fierce, won this year's Canada Reads competition.]
978-0986638817
The threesome arrives in Vancouver in 1974 as refugees. Sol's child Tania is a newborn. The grandmother recalls:
"As much as I wanted to pretend that I didn't care about Chile anymore, it didn't take me long to realize that when you leave your country behind, you don't really leave your country behind. It haunts you, it teases you, it plays tricks on you; it shows up at every corner, in every street; in the wind, in the clouds. It doesn't leave you alone. Your past plays in your head over and over again, like a movie that you already know by heart, but cannot stop watching.";
During their first weeks at the Cove Motor Inn in English Bay, a one-star transit hotel operated by the Canadian government, her daughter Sol tells her, "The baby's father is my torturer."; (Rodriguez has given the reader some foreknowledge of this, near the outset.) Soledad, the grandmother, explodes with hatred:
"I hated Pinochet. I hated my son's murderer. I hated my sister for having turned my daughter in. I hated my daughter's torturer. I hated my daughter for giving birth to the torturer's baby and I hated baby Tania. But above all I hated myself for not having known to live my life to the fullest when I was young; for not having accepted and loved my son for who he was; for having disapproved of my children's political views; for not having appreciated what I had. I hated myself for being alive and not having the guts to end it all and leave this world once and for all.";
The grandmother rallies herself and becomes involved in the solidarity movement of Chilean exiles and refugees in Vancouver, but the title Retribution arises from the tortured daughter Sol's resolve to take revenge by breaking the legacy of cruelty and hate, by re-inventing love.
[Carmen Rodriguez is not to be confused with Chilean-born playwright Carmen Aguirre, also of Vancouver, whose memoir of political resistance in Chile, Something Fierce, won this year's Canada Reads competition.]
978-0986638817
Submitted on March 1, 2012 in By David.
