{"product_id":"the-cemetery-of-untold-stories-9781643753843","title":"The Cemetery of Untold Stories","description":"\u003cb\u003eLiterary icon Julia Alvarez, bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eIn the Time of the Butterflies\u003c\/i\u003e shares an inventive and emotional novel about storytelling and her homeland of the Dominican Republic.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Alma Cruz, the celebrated writer at the heart of \u003ci\u003eThe Cemetery of Untold Stories\u003c\/i\u003e, doesn't want to end up like her friend, a novelist who fought so long and hard to finish a book that it threatened her sanity. So when Alma inherits a small plot of land in the Dominican Republic, her homeland, she has the beautiful idea of turning it into a place to bury her untold stories--literally. She creates a graveyard for the manuscript drafts and revisions, and the characters whose lives she tried and failed to bring to life and who still haunt her. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Alma wants her characters to rest in peace. But they have other ideas, and the cemetery becomes a mysterious sanctuary for their true narratives. Filomena, a local woman hired as the groundskeeper, becomes a sympathetic listener as Alma's characters unspool their secret tales. Among them: Bienvenida, the abandoned second wife of dictator Rafael Trujillo, consigned to oblivion by history, and Manuel Cruz, a doctor who fought in the Dominican underground and escaped to the United States. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e The characters defy their author: they talk back to her and talk to one another behind her back, rewriting and revising themselves. \u003ci\u003eThe Cemetery of Untold Stories \u003c\/i\u003easks: Whose stories get to be told, and whose buried? Finally, Alma finds the meaning she and her characters yearn for in the everlasting vitality of stories. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Readers of Isabel Allende's \u003ci\u003eVioleta \u003c\/i\u003eand Barbara Kingsolver's \u003ci\u003eDemon Copperhead \u003c\/i\u003ewill devour Alvarez's extraordinary new novel about beauty and authenticity, and will be reminded that the stories of our lives are never truly finished, even at the end.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Algonquin Books\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 04\/02\/2024\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781643753843\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 256\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview Citations: \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e 11\/01\/2023 pg. 3\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Julia Alvarez","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43600615604405,"sku":"9781643753843","price":23.8,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/files\/img_2c544260-c619-482a-8c09-3e0e1586c988.jpg?v=1707210286","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/the-cemetery-of-untold-stories-9781643753843","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}