Family Lore

Family Lore is the intricate, sweeping story of the Martes, a family of Dominican-American women who possess magical gifts, from a supernatural talent on the dance floor to the ability to predict the day of someone’s death. The women’s gifts are wondrous, but it’s the soul-deep bonds they share that make this novel vibrant and unforgettable.

When 70-year-old Flor announces she’ll be hosting a living wake, her sisters, Camila, Pastora, and Matilde, draw around her, as does the next generation of Martes. Each woman is sorting through her own heartache: trouble conceiving and carrying a child, a reunion with a lover released from jail, an aging and unfaithful husband, and death itself, to name a few. Elizabeth Acevedo poignantly portrays each woman’s struggle, as well as how the Martes show up for one another, as they prepare for the wake and the family’s next chapter. To whom will they say good-bye? How will their family change and grow?

This novel got under my skin and into my heart. Acevedo is a masterful storyteller, as wise as she is funny, as tender as she is tough, and her characters are astonishingly real. I’ve recalled scenes from the novel as if they were stories passed down to me by loved ones. Who was it again who on her wedding night was dumped at a hotel while her husband went out to chase other women? Who was it who watched something sexy on her computer one night without knowing that her husband could hear? Who was it whose sister rescued her from that cruel aunt? This is how alive the Marte women have become to me—their family lore has become my own.

Flor has a gift: she can predict, to the day, when someone will die. So when she decides she wants a living wake—a party to bring her family and community together to celebrate the long life she’s led—her sisters are surprised. Has Flor foreseen her own death, or someone else’s? Does she have other motives? She refuses to tell her sisters, Matilde, Pastora, and Camila.

But Flor isn’t the only person with secrets. Matilde has tried for decades to cover the extent of her husband’s infidelity, but she must now confront the true state of her marriage. Pastora is typically the most reserved sister, but Flor’s wake motivates this driven woman to solve her sibling’s problems. Camila is the youngest sibling, and often the forgotten one, but she’s decided she no longer wants to be taken for granted.

And the next generation, cousins Ona and Yadi, face tumult of their own: Yadi is reuniting with her first love, who was imprisoned when they were both still kids; Ona is married for years and attempting to conceive. Ona must decide whether it’s worth it to keep trying—to have a child, and the anthropology research that’s begun to feel lackluster.