"And regrets are just a way to make the same mistakes over and over."
Fanciful, strange. The lives of the women in this novel have all been molded by men who are either unfaithful, brutal, or both. Their lives remain their own, whether kept to themselves or shared. Alma, a writer who finds she cannot complete stories she has worked on for years, takes advantage of an inheritance in her native Dominican Republic to create a cemetery in which to bury them. But given the right audience, they tell themselves. Thus the reader learns what Alma sought, which is both compelling and disappointing.
The novel also provides excellent depictions of the persistence difficulties arising among siblings. ( )

A different kind of story, essentially about learning how to share our selves, our lives, the interconnectedness between us, and letting go of the past.[return]The setting in a poor section of the Dominican Republic gives American readers a view into another culture. Nice.[return]Some of the characters might spend a little too much time in their head.[return]Since this was an ARC and maybe wording may change, I won't put the quotes in the Common Knowledge, but here.[return]"The untold is sacred ground. Whatever is buried there should be left alone. It's called 'the afterlife' for a reason." (p.204)[return]"Everybody loves everybody more. No need to bring out the mearsuring cup." (p.206)[return]"...the earth itself was storying." (p.208)[return]"And regrets are just a way to make the same mistakes over and over." (p.220) ( )

The Cemetery of Untold Stories - Julia Alvarez
Audio performance by Alma Cuervo
4 stars

A famous Dominican American novelist, Alma Cruz, has a story to tell. Alma begins with a convoluted tale about her ‘her friend’ and unnamed literary mentor who dies in a mental institution. The ‘friend’ is plagued by many paranoid delusions, including the idea that the characters of an unpublished story are haunting her. I’ll admit that I thought this opening tale was awkward, too long, and more convoluted than necessary.

As Alma ages she finds that she also has stories that she is unable to finish. This seems to be more than a case of writer’s block. She decides to retire to the land of her ancestors wrapping up her successful writing and teaching careers. She makes a proactive decision to never end up like her mentally ill friend. She will give her unfinished manuscripts a ceremonial burial. This decision coincides with her father’s death and a family inheritance. Alma accepts the least desirable plot of land in the inheritance to create her Cemetery of Untold Stories.

The plot diverges into many tangents of family drama including the early history of Alma’s parents and her current relations with her three sisters. The characters of her unpublished books have their own thoughts, desires, and continuing stories which they impart to Alma’s new cemetery caretaker, Filomena. These characters include the second wife of the dictator Trujillo and a rebel of that oppressed era, Doctor Cruz. I did get lost in the layers of metafiction as the fictional characters of a fictional author related their personal stories to another fictional character. The audio performance was fine, but there were connections between characters that passed over me. I think it would have helped to have a print edition.

This is the first book that I’ve read by Julia Alvarez, although I’ve been wanting to try her books for some time. This may not have been the best title to start with, but despite my confusion (at least partly due to my own lack of concentration) I enjoyed the book. I liked the way she built the relationships between Alma and her sisters. I appreciated the insights into Dominican Republic history and to the immigrant experience. There was wry humor that prevented the book from becoming a bleak story without minimizing the effects of trauma and tragedy. I found that I missed the characters when I’d finished the book. I wouldn’t mind going back to it to see if I can figure out what was really going on in the Cemetery. ( )

An aging writer creates a cemetery for her unfinished manuscripts, those novels that she never managed to write. The book alternated narrators, to tell parts of these stories, and also to show how they weave together. It's a bit magical, and overall just lovely, though there were a few bits that were too much for me. My favorite parts were the relationships between the writer and her sisters, and the story of Bienvenida Trujillo, first wife of the dictator. ( )

I ended up liking this more than I thought I would. Took about half the book to get going, but in the end thinking about who gets to tell which stories was worth while. The images of being surrounded by stories amongst a cemetery's headstones was compelling. ( )

Stories, stories, stories - so many to be savored in one glorious book! Dona Alma Cruz is a well-known writer from the Dominican Republic (much like Alvarez herself) who has left the US to return to her homeland with the intention of burying her never-and-partially-written stories, to give them a comfortable resting place and to allow her a peaceful retirement. There she hires an elderly neighbor, Filomena, as a caretaker for her and for the slumland she converts into a sculpture garden and home for her unpublished works. Philomena's story, and that of her sister Perla, is told with great tenderness, even though Perla performs a shocking act. The two primary characters whose stories are recounted are of Manuel, Alma's father, who pursues his wife Lucia over the objections of her wealthy family, struggles to become a doctor in the US with his qualifications from the DR, and then finds a sympathetic lover as Lucia rises in the diplomatic world; and Bienvenida, the second wife of El Jefe, the Dominican dictator Trujillo, who suffers through his love, abuse, and his ultimate rejection when she cannot produce an heir. The entwinements between the characters and their lives, alive or not, are remarkably told and the narrative is suffused with empathy, reminding me , in scope and humanity, of The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese. I hope that Julia Alvarez writes on forever! ( )

I never read this author. It was a difficult read maybe because of the multiple Spanish words and customs. Set in New York and Dominican Republic it had some interesting characters and storylines. ( )

A haunting story about the power of stories. If some of the stories within the story leave the reader feeling slightly detached, that may be the intended effect of an extra layer of unreality.

The Cemetery of Untold Stories, Julia Alvarez, author; Alma Cuervo, narrator
The novel’s main character, Alma Cruz, begins her successful, clandestine writing life with the alias of Sheherazade, shortly after her mother objects to her telling stories about their lives and threatens to expose her. Her good friend, a highly successful author, sadly suffering from psychosis, is the one who suggests the change. Their friendship will become an untold story as their relationship diminishes with the increasing evidence of her madness.
As Sheherazade, further good fortune follows Alma; she gains success as a writer and also in a successful teaching career. When she retires, some four decades later, she leaves America, the country that had welcomed her and provided her a safe haven, to return to her homeland, the Dominican Republic. There she constructs a cemetery for all the stories she had never published, and all the stories revealed to her by visitors. Their silent stories are given voice, and a legacy, as they are buried in the hallowed ground that she has created. Through the stories she relates, truths are uncovered. The barbarism of the assassinated dictator, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina, is exposed as well, as several female characters reveal their stories. The relationships between various characters are further explored through their stories, whether they were published or remain hidden in notebooks.
What seems at first to be several disparate stories, coalesce to form a novel that is also about the history of life in the Dominican Republic for those who loved and suffered from the love of their dictator. It is sometimes hard to tell which stories are told and which remain untold. Are they all still unfolding? This novel tells the stories that are rooted in both the life and the ancestry of the author, Julia Alvarez.
As Cruz tells the stories that explore the lives of all the characters that she was never able to put into print, they take on a life of their own. Their untold stories are stored in the boxes that she cherishes. She hires Sophie to organize them. She places Filomena Altogracia Moronto in charge of the stories, and Filomena listens to the new stories that unfold, as well. The characters will grow and shrink throughout the novel, and at times, it is hard to distinguish the supposed factual character from the fictional character, the real life of the author in the novel and the fictional life she creates. The novel, therefore, would be better in print, than in an audio, because some of the narrative feels disjointed and needs to be reread. It is hard to do that in an audio unless you do it at the moment it occurs, and sometimes, you are far beyond that point when you realize it is confusing.
In the end, everyone’s life is a tale of untold stories, secrets and memories. Alma stored all of these stories in her cemetery so they would live on, in a sense, though buried. Friendships and love affairs come and go, success can be fleeting, but the cemetery would remain as a sacred repository of undeveloped characters that never got to see the light of day or to appear in the pages of a book. This character, Alma Cruz, collected stories that represented the lives of all the characters that would have lived in her novel or in the novels of others who never published their tales. Everyone’s life contains stories too, and together, their tales occupied graves in the cemetery of stories, the place they could be honored and would live on, after a fashion. ( )

A different kind of story, essentially about learning how to share our selves, our lives, the interconnectedness between us, and letting go of the past.
The setting in a poor section of the Dominican Republic gives American readers a view into another culture. Nice.
Some of the characters might spend a little too much time in their head.
Since this was an ARC and maybe wording may change, I won't put the quotes in the Common Knowledge, but here.
"The untold is sacred ground. Whatever is buried there should be left alone. It's called 'the afterlife' for a reason." (p.204)
"Everybody loves everybody more. No need to bring out the mearsuring cup." (p.206)
"...the earth itself was storying." (p.208)
"And regrets are just a way to make the same mistakes over and over." (p.220) ( )

The structure of this novel--presented without chapters and in four parts--nevertheless keeps the reader engaged. The premise of a place to bury untold stories, with its magic realism element, is so skillfully crafted and interwoven in the flow of the storyline, thus creating an overall intriguing tale. ( )

The Cemetery of Untold Stories is a beautiful rendition of what happens when a story goes untold. It describes not only how people don't get to hear the story, but how the story can change someone's perspective of the person or thing it is about. It looks at how a story being told by someone else can change the person it is being told about, and how these stories impact the perceptions people have of the topic.

I loved the magical realism elements to the story, and the multiple overlapping storylines. I found it to be quite immersive, and I was very interested in learning about these character's lives.

It was a bit slow at times, however, and it took me a while to get through. It does also follow the Sally Rooney trend of not indicating speech with quotation marks, which I am very much not a fan of. Overall though, it was a pretty good book. ( )

Creative! Thought provoking! Great storytelling; stories within stories!

The title caught my eye; I'm glad it did.

What happens to untold stories? Are they lost forever? Should all stories be told? ( )

3.25

This is an ARC from netgalley.

The idea of a cemetery of untold stories is beautiful, however, the storyline felt a bit jumbled and the individual stories all swirled together. I listened to this on audio and I think it made understanding the multiple characters tales across different points in time even more confusing.
There were also stories left somewhat unfinished and the ending felt a bit soft for me.
It does remind me of Isabel Allende novels - so if you like those, you may enjoy this.

In The Cemetery of Untold Stories Alma Cruz is a retiring writer and writing professor. She is quite famous and is an icon in her native country of the Dominican Republic. When Alma inherits a plot of land in the Dominican Republic from her father she decides to move there permanently. But what to do with all the unfinished stories she has saved over the years? She has boxes upon boxes of these unfinished and overly revised stories that were never finished or published. Alma's answer is to create a sculpture garden cemetery to honor these unfinished stories by burying them so they can rest in peace. However many of the characters in these stories still have their tales to tell and will not be quiet. Filomena, the hired grounds keeper can hear these characters speak their truths and it is through her that we get to also listen in. This is a magical and thought provoking tale told in a non linear timeline by multiple characters. This book is beautiful literary fiction full of complicated family stories that weave and interact with each other and along the way thoroughly entertain the reader. I especially enjoyed the interactions of Alma and her sisters, that's what sisters are for. I highly recommend this novel for lovers of magical realism and literary fiction. The narrator as wonderful. 5 stars.

Many thanks to Net Galley and RB Media | Recorded Books for a chance to listen/read to an ARC copy of this audio book. ( )

"All stories are good stories if you find the right listener."

I was in awe of Julia Alvarez and Edwidge Danticat's discussion of The Cemetery of Untold Stories at The Center for Fiction. Hearing about the power of storytelling and the importance of oral histories to preserve culture left me inspired and I couldn't wait to meet the characters that I heard so much about.

Reading this one felt like I was listening in on all the good chisme being discussed at a family gathering. I instantly fell in love with Filomena and her ability to receive all the stories from the ghosts of the cemetery. I also fell in love with her own personal story that has yet to be told to the world. It has been difficult to read lately but this completely captivated my attention and I found it so easy to immerse myself in this world and forget everything heavy I was going through in real life. Filomena and Bienvenida are unforgettable and by the end of the book I just couldn't let them go. I find myself wondering about them.

This is a book that is heavily driven by the characters and the stories they share and there is no real plot, but the vibes and the feelings are perfect. I loved how some of the ghost stories were interconnected and how the use of language, including Dominican Spanish, added even more flavor. It wasn't my favorite of Alvarez's work, but it is one that I will always think of because it feels like a warm hug from the Caribbean. Thanks to @algonquinbooks for the gifted copy.

Some thoughts I'm left with are:
• Who decides the validity of stories and oral histories?
• What happens to stories when authors stop writing?
• Every story has its ideal listener, so they all need to be told.
• How do authors reconcile aging and end of life with the amount of untold stories left in them?
• The best stories come from your own families.
• Dominican history has facets that have been erased and can only be uncovered through the stories of ordinary people.
• Where do stories go to die?
• Caribbean stories are a vital part of literary legacy.
• You can't undo harmful history without uncovering stories from different aspects of an event.
• "There are stories in the silence." ( )

I just finished reading The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez. I can sum up my review in these words, I hoped for more.

The beginning was intriguing, a woman writer who got in a rut after her mother died. Her mother complained about the writer exposing family secrets that should have remained buried. After her mother died she started story after story and re-wrote them but they were never good enough for publication. When she inherited a large parcel of worthless land, she wants to make it into a cemetery for untold stories. The land is cleared and some of them are burned, others were put in a plastic lined grave. She hired a woman to take care of the cemetery.

We learn about the writer's family who are bad characters so when the story shifts to the story of the woman who tends the cemetery, I felt hopeful.

Back history brings us to the story of two women, the elder and younger. The younger had a terrible life, she was not even allowed to kept her first name when her old sister demanded that they trade names.

The history of the two sisters unfolds, I did not like the older sister, you can read and find out why. The younger sister's life becomes pitiful and ultimately disappointing.

I wanted to stop reading after a third of the book but got hopeful when the story turned to the younger sister. I did not like the ending. ( )

4.5⭐️

“She needed a place to bury her unfinished work, a space honoring all those characters who had never had the chance to tell their stories. She wanted to bring them home to their mother tongue and land.”

The daughter of Dominican immigrants, renowned Latin American novelist Alma Cruz, decides to relocate to the Dominican Republic after she retires from academia, much to the surprise of her sisters. Despite her successful career as a writer, she carries the burden of several unfinished and abandoned manuscripts that she has decides to lay to rest in a “cemetery” she builds on a piece of land inherited from her late father. Collaborating with a local artist, Alma plans to burn and inter the remains of her notes and manuscripts with artistically sculpted markers for each of her unfinished works. Visitors would be allowed at the cemetery of untold stories but only if they meet some very specific criteria.

“If a story is never told, where does it go?”

Two of the unfinished manuscripts, both of which had a special place in Alma’s heart, don’t burn and are buried as is – one of which was based on the stories shared by her father, Dr. Manuel Cruz, a Dominican immigrant who fled from the Trujillo regime; and the other inspired by the life of Bienvenida Inocencia Ricardo Martinez Trujillo, second wife of former Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. Alma employs Filomena, a lonely woman who has been visiting the cemetery as a groundskeeper. But Filomena does much more than just tend to the property. Capable of hearing the words floating around the cemetery, she lends a sympathetic ear to the interred characters who share their stories with her – stories that inspire her to reflect on her own life.

As the narrative progresses, we follow all of these characters and the history, people and places that have shaped their lives.

An ode to the power of stories, storytelling and orature, The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez is an exquisitely penned character-driven novel that combines elements of historical fiction, magical realism and family drama. The narrative is presented from multiple perspectives across past and present timelines. As the four separate threads of the story converge and diverge, the narrative explores themes of family and sisterhood, the immigrant experience and how the stories of those who came before us are never truly gone and continue to influence the lives of those they left behind. I loved how the magical realism aspect of this story was executed and appreciated that the author did not resort to melodrama while describing intense emotional moments. Though there are moments where the narrative might come across as disjointed (the narrative does jump timelines a tad abruptly which takes a while to get used to), this does not detract from the overall reading experience. There were a few aspects and storylines that I wished had been developed further, but I was satisfied with how the author chose to bring all of the threads of the story together. With its fascinating premise, complex characters, rich historical context and powerful writing, I found this novel to be a compelling read.

I paired my reading with the audiobook narrated by Alma Cuervo for an engaging immersion reading experience. I should mention, however, that the narration is more in storytelling mode with minimal variations between the character voices. While this itself did not bother me, I feel that given the structure of the novel, it might be difficult to follow the multiple tracks and timelines if one plans to rely solely on the audiobook. I would recommend pairing the book with the audio.

“Seems like everyone who lives has endured some sadness, sometimes buried so deep inside them, even they don’t know it’s there. And if you could hear other people’s stories all the time, what then? Would you understand them better? Would you forgive them?”

Many thanks to Algonquin Books for the digital review copy and RB Media for the ALC via NetGalley. All opinions expressed in this review are my own. ( )

Julia Álavrez never disappoints. Never. Her writing has a gentleness to it that can temporarily make us feel it's not doing much. This is a mistake. Word by word, idea by idea, she takes us to fantastic places. And she doesn't do this with a lot of flash and bang—or at least not the kind of flash and bang that shake the house and put everyone on edge. Instead we readers find ourselves realizing there is so much going on here in this novel that pretends it's not saying much at all.

OK, that's not true of all her work. In the Time of the Butterflies definitely has flash and bang—and hilarity and righteous anger and justice and injustice and so much more. But her more recent work is just as powerful in a way that sneaks up on us. Case in point: The Cemetery of Untold Stories. The premise here (if we assume that in some ways what writers write about is themselves, which, of course, we. are. never. supposed. to. do) is almost self-deprecating. A writer finds herself growing older surrounded by a growing body of unfinished works: stories and novels that she wanted to write, needed to write, but that quietly refused to be written.

So what can this writer do? She can move back to her home country, create a graveyard with room for each unfinished story, and allow the stories to fall into a kind of sleep in which they interact with one another.

Reading The Cemetery of Untold Stories is like looking into one of those multi-paned dressing room mirrors, the kind in which, depending on how we angle the different panes in relation to one another show us multiple images and multiples of multiple images. And just like the images in those mirrors, no matter how complex the story gets, its parts remain alongside one another. We think we're taking baby steps, moving forward in small increments; then, at some point we realize we've been given seven-league boots to wear and are traveling distances we couldn't have imagined from our starting place.

Read this book. Respect its pace, but don't be fooled. The journey is magical.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own. ( )

Alma Cruz, a Dominican novelist and professor nearing retirement, has enjoyed considerable professional success since emigrating from her native land to her current home in Vermont. Like all writers, though, along with the successes, there have been failures in the form of books she cannot seem to finish. These untold stories haunt Alma to the point that when she and her three sisters inherit some rundown properties in the Dominican Republic, she returns home to commit the symbolic act of burying those failed literary efforts in the ground. But the characters in those stories refuse to give up on their tales being told, even if Alma has. Two characters in particular—Bienvenida Trujillo, the second wife of the brutal dictator who terrorized the island for decades, and Manuel Cruz, Alma’s own father who was exiled for his political views—find a way to communicate with each other as well as Filomena, the caretaker in the unique cemetery. While most unfinished books go away quietly—as one of Alma’s colleagues put it: “Some stories don’t want to be told”—these are two that insist on being heard. And what surprising and heartbreaking accounts they end up telling.

In The Cemetery of Untold Stories, celebrated author Julia Alvarez spins this inventive tale, which effectively combines elements of historical fiction and magical realism with a multi-generational family saga in roughly equal measure. That is an impressive feat, especially given how tricky magical realism can be to pull off on its own, much less in concert with other genres. Alvarez does a nice job of moving between the plethora of storylines, starting in the present day with Alma and her family before regressing through the decades where we learn the histories that the spirits of Bienvenida and Manuel have come alive to tell. The writing throughout the novel is sharp and affecting; these are characters that we come to care about, both those in the present (Alma and Filomena) and those from the past. If there was any shortcoming in the book it would be that some of the family dynamics and backstories—usually a strength in the author’s fiction—were a little underdeveloped, particularly those involving Alma’s sisters and mother. Still, this is a minor complaint about what was a highly enjoyable reading experience. It is an easy book to recommend without hesitation. ( )

The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez is a magical book about the life stories take on, with or without their creator. It is also a vibrant commentary about whose voices are heard and who gets to tell whose story.

I'll admit upfront I am a big fan of Alvarez, so I came to this expecting something spectacular. My expectations were met and I don't think I am saying that blindly, I have been (once) underwhelmed with something she wrote.

Anyone who has written a lot but published little to nothing understands how that can play with your mind. Even the healthiest will still harbor self-doubt, and the rest of us quit often (which also means we start again often, writing is something many of us simply have to do, even if we believe it will end up being just for ourselves). My personal "cemetery" is actually a couple of file cabinet drawers, but every now and then I hear murmurings, so maybe I need to open myself to possibility.

While I loved this novel, it made me want to go back and reread some of her essays and nonfiction. In particular I plan to go back to Something to Declare, it has been a very long time but for some reason I want to put these works in conversation with each other, and me. Then again, maybe my memory is playing tricks on me. But even if that is the case, I'll still enjoy rereading it.

Highly recommended for those who enjoy, even if just for the duration of a short novel, believing in the power of magic and of story.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. ( )

This book is an example of why we should, most definitely, read outside our comfort zones and moods. Read my full review here.

Publication day was April 2.

#NetGalley #RBMedia #TheCemeteryofUntoldStories ( )