Fruit of the Drunken Tree

Read this book in the context of our work book club.

It was the first time I read about Colombian history and Pablo Escobar, to discover it through the eyes of Chula, a little girl with her limited comprehension of the world was quite something. I was enthralled quite quickly by the story and intrigued by its ebbs and flows. The character was built slowly but became more and more loveable as the story went on. I love the dynamic between the girls, Petrona and their mother, the class division and the differences in ways of seeing the world and Escobar's deeds. At times the writing felt a bit clunky and made me wonder what was happening and it is the main flaw I saw in the book. An interesting read!

Review to come.

I fell in love with Contreras writing when I read an essay she wrote on, believe it or not, Buzzfeed. Here it is. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ingridrojascontreras/life-lessons-from-my-mom-the-psychic
I thought, if the essay is this good the novel is going to be fantastic. And it is, on so many levels. I don't think I have ever read anything set in Columbia before, I was obsessed with Pablo Escobar while watching the first season of Narcos and this is a historical novel that takes place in a time when I was alive (in fact, I am around the same age as the narrator).
While the entire novel is powerful, the last couple of chapters had me panting for breath. The emotions!!!!!
Overall, it is a great novel. I don't think it's a five star read, but I struggle to come up with a suggestion of what could have been added or taken away to make it a 5 star read. Petrona's POV, did not work for me. Our main narrator is 7 years old, so I expected some clarity with Petrona's chapters but they are dreamy and vague and didn't help. I think I wanted more of the culture, more about the drunken tree. More about the mother. The reader is limited to what Chula sees and understands.
I'm looking forward to more by Contreras.

Civil war, guerrillas, kidnappings, violence, outages in Columbia in the 1990s as seen through the eyes of 2 young girls of different standings. Chula, who is nine, lives in a gated community together with her sister and mother (and a generally absent father). Petrona, who is thirteen, lives in the slums and is her large family's only provider. When Petrona comes to work as a maid for Chula's family, the young girl is fascinated by her. A bond of secrets ensues that soon becomes dangerous.

Intertwined with their personal tragedies we follow along with Pablo Escobar's terror on Columbia, his flight and capture. Which was informative, what frightening times.

The book holds two coming-of-age stories, and starts out as decent storytelling, and then towards the end becomes quite haunting with its conclusions. Experiencing the causes and effects of trauma through Chula's eyes, without having the external explanatory perspective on it, was very touching. Sometimes the girl's thoughts and observations felt a bit too wise for her age, but it definitely made for good reading.

(Note to self: avoid overuse of locomotive catastrophe similes. Go for something cheerier). There were bunny rabbits! We never got to see or hear about them, other than the fact that they existed, but they existed! Isn't that enough?

But let's be honest, this is not a book about bunny rabbits. This is a bleak, harsh, gripping story of life under barbaric conditions. My handful of childhood friends here on Goodreads may find it disturbingly reminiscent of PR's violence and corruption in the seventies/eighties, except this is markedly worse, but somehow the fact that it's so recognizable made it creepier for me. Me dieron escalofríos. I feel fortunate and humble. There but for etc etc.

Beautiful evocative prose. Stylistically, it's a gimmick that rarely works: writing an adult story from the perspective of a young child. Double, in this case: alternating first-person from a seven-year-old and a thirteen-year-old. You know the drill: narrator relates Meaningful Details clinically or curiously, innocently oblivious, but clearly details the author wants us to know so the reader tries to go with it for the sake of the story. And, oddly, I found myself going with it. I can't say that it truly worked, but it was effective: Rojas Contreras managed it better than almost all similar stories I've read. Her protagonists are believable. Both are children of narcissists; both come off as honest, genuine, letting us see how their best intentions – under impossible circumstances – lead to terrible mistakes which cascade.

Most interesting of all is the tone: Rojas Contreras balances hope, acceptance, and despair. Warmth, even. Humans go through bad shit; humans try to make the best of it; humans cope with what they have to; life goes on. I'm grateful for my privilege.

[UPDATE, few hours later: I wrote this paragraph, then cut it because I ran too long, and am now deciding to add it back. Slightly condensed.] I alternated reading this book with listening to the 2023-06-12 episode of Hidden Brain, Between Two Worlds, about the ethical dilemmas faced by those who emigrate away from hopeless environments. Obviously not the same – most people never get that choice – but there were surprising parallels: different weights given to factors that, as a youth, I weighted differently. I still do, but that podcast changed how I interpreted the last third of the book. It was a fortunate coincidence.