Review of Alicia Maldonado: A Mother Lost by Ardain Isma


This modern, aristocratic book portrays real-life events and how hard it is to deal with them, overcome them, or even struggle with them. Such is life, anywhere you put it, in the Caribbean or otherwise. Many people might have problems dealing with the material in this book. But it's involving, shocking, yet mellifluously elegant in its portrayal of a wealthy woman's humble and downtrodden existence. She cannot fathom the dark side of life, and in her pure yet misguided rebellion, she becomes a metaphoric symbol for humanity in general--not to mention impoverished, yet mysteriously happy.

Professor Ardain Isma's excellent first novel painstakingly describes the fact-based life story of Alicia Maldonado, a young, aristrocratic white woman born in Cuba to a land-owning family, members of a seemingly elite class. Alicia arrives in Haiti with her parents and older brother Mario after fleeing Cuba, following the political turmoil within the Batista regime. But what she discovers there is that, in its own way, there is no such thing as fleeing. What her family left behind had to catch up with her slowly, surely, like a creeping plague of sophisticated reality that could only draw to a bad conclusion...

She marries her next-door neighbor and best friend, Richard Laveaux, the son of a rich mulatto family, in spite of her mother's protests. The marriage is happy at first, and Alicia enjoys working for the family business and raising their two children. But the altogether too soon deaths of her father and her alcoholic husband raise questions in her mind about the sanity and purpose of her carefully kept upper-class existence.

Was she really meant to be happy, or is something else, a mysterious fate much darker and deeper, in store for her?

Unable to cope with her problems, Alicia leaves Haiti with her youngest child, Jean-Marie, and vanishes without a trace. None of her family or friends knows her exact whereabouts, and a prolonged and heated search for her begins. How does it ever end? How long must she suffer, and what happens?

You must find out, by reading this gripping, poignant and sophisticatedly charming book--full of the flavor of the islands, the richness of the soil, and the death of all meaning.

RAINBOW WRITING, INC. -- featuring Karen Peralta, copy editor, ghost writer and book author -- EXPERT FREE DOWNLOAD COMPUTER FIXER PROGRAM! We also offer inexpensive professional freelance and contracted writing, editing, copy editing and writing, rewriting, ghost writing, graphics design and CAD, Internet marketing, publishing assistance, search engine optimization, professional free services and supercheap dedicated web hosting and website development services. http://www.rainbowriting.com/







Related News



Book reviews: 'Man in the Dark' and 'Supreme Courtship' - International Herald Tribune

Book reviews: 'Man in the Dark' and 'Supreme Courtship'
International Herald Tribune, France -Aug 27, 2008
His writing talent has been squandered, he tells us, on thousands of 700-word and 1500-word reviews. He is a sprinter, not a long-distance writer; ...

Book Review: On Reading - Photo District News (subscription)

Photo District News (subscription)

Book Review: On Reading
Photo District News (subscription), NY -Aug 26, 2008
By Conor Risch By André Kertész As Robert Gurbo notes in his brief preface to André Kertétz’s On Reading, this new edition of the book that was originally ...

Book Review: Templeton Turtle Goes Exploring by Ron Pridmore - Blogcritics.org

Book Review: Templeton Turtle Goes Exploring by Ron Pridmore
Blogcritics.org, OH -6 hours ago
Writing Christian book reviews and on the topics of Christian family living, home-schooling, homesteading and more. Keep reading for information and ...

Business book reviews - Dallas Morning News

Business book reviews
Dallas Morning News, TX -Aug 24, 2008
By JIM PAWLAK / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News The wisdom in folk tales finds its way to the workplace. In the work world of productivity ...

Listening to Wildlife and Book Reviews from Nancy Pearl - KUOW NPR

KUOW NPR

Listening to Wildlife and Book Reviews from Nancy Pearl
KUOW NPR, WA -Aug 25, 2008
We also get book reviews from Nancy Pearl. James Hoch's second book of poems, "Miscreants," probes the limits of art's ability to respond to tragedy. ...

Bottom of The Barrel Book Reviews-Confessions of a Recovering Preppie - Slashdot

Bottom of The Barrel Book Reviews-Confessions of a Recovering Preppie
Slashdot -Aug 25, 2008
They say you can't always judge a book by it's cover but in this case, the unintentionally embarrassing front is perfect. Confessions is a painfully ...

Beyond Mars – The Crimson Fleet, by RG Risch: Book Review - Blogger News Network

Beyond Mars – The Crimson Fleet, by RG Risch: Book Review
Blogger News Network -Aug 25, 2008
by Sgt. Mom in Book Reviews, Reviews “Beyond Mars” is a fast-moving read with an old-fashioned pulp adventure-in-space aesthetic about it. ...

Weekend book reviews - International Herald Tribune

Weekend book reviews
International Herald Tribune, France -Aug 22, 2008
The answer, fascinatingly explored in a book that pairs the reclusive Belle of Amherst with the man who assisted in the first posthumous publication of her ...

Book Review: For Buckeye Fans Only! by Rich Wolfe - Blogcritics.org

Book Review: For Buckeye Fans Only! by Rich Wolfe
Blogcritics.org, OH -Aug 25, 2008
But, for any Buckeye, this is the book to own. Lesa Holstine is a library manager in Glendale, AZ. She reviews a little of anything, with an emphasis on ...

Book reviews: 'Sherlock Holmes on the Stage'; 'Blood on the Stage' - Los Angeles Times

Book reviews: 'Sherlock Holmes on the Stage'; 'Blood on the Stage'
Los Angeles Times, CA -Aug 20, 2008
Kabatchnik's work, however, uniquely offers not only a detailed narration of each of the featured plays but also a collation of contemporary reviews and ...