Here's a link to a new and wonderful review:
http://the-iceberg.blogspot.com/search?q=the+road+from+la+cueva
(And here's the text, for quick reference - but do go to the original site, as Terri's blog is beautiful and she reviews many wonderful books!)
The Road from La Cueva by Sheila Ortego
Title: The Road from La Cueva
Author: Sheila Ortego
Publisher: Sunstone Press, Santa Fe
Year: 2008
This beautifully written novel tells the story of one woman's journey of self-discovery. The novel not only contends with Ana Howland's increasing sense of being smothered by a domineering and controlling husband, but also shows her growing realization that she has always lived under the overbearing weight of an oppressive relationship. Neither her authoritarian mother nor her dictatorial husband can accept her as a separate and imperfect person.
The Road from La Cueva is full of metaphor and in the hands of Ortego, the use of this device brings a richness and poetry to a topic that might seem trite in other hands. We are given a deeper glimpse into Ana's struggles through the images of the hostile road from La Cueva, the stubborn clay shaped by the potter, and the Changing Woman Ceremony (sometimes called the Sunrise Ceremony).
The road to and from Ana's home is a very tangible representation of those oppressive relationships in her life. When this dirt road is dry, it is as hard and unyielding as rock ... ready to tear up and break what dares to pass over it. Wet, the road is even worse. It oozes over and sucks everything into it with "a satisfied, brown belch."
The beauty of the imperfect is gorgeously represented through the craft of pottery. As Ana learns this craft from Michael, a co-worker, she notices that one of his creations has an uneven rim.
He ran his fingers around the rim of the cup. "See how this isn't even? The Japanese call this shibui, the flaw that makes something beautiful. The shape has to have some room, some freedom." ... "Like with people," he said, and she nodded.
It is this very room and freedom that is lacking in Ana's life. She has allowed the oppressive behaviors of others to weigh down her very being and she knows that it is something only she can change.
One of the most beautiful chapters in the book is the one describing the Changing Woman Ceremony, a Native American ceremony celebrating the change from girlhood to womanhood. Ana already knows that the means to change her life is within reach. It becomes more apparent as she watches the ceremony and recognizes her own internal strength and power as a woman. No longer will she be passively shaped by others. Ana already has the ability to gain command over her weaknesses, to be physically and emotionally strong, and to endure and suffer with dignity. Before the readers' eyes, "[she is shaped] ... into the woman she [is] to become." Her deep compassion and resilience form a strong core around which to emerge.
The Road from La Cueva is an encouraging look at the power we all have to shape our own lives. The passion and beauty of the writing is something that will draw me back to this story repeatedly.
Rating: 5 of 5
**************************************
For more about Sheila Ortego, visit the author's website here.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Wowzio Tag Cloud
So I just installed a 'Wowzio Tag Cloud' and will see how well that does with luring Oprah to my blog!!! (You know, Oprah WINFREY, of 'The Oprah Effect'?)
Besides, I think Oprah likes a lot of the same books I do, as listed on my Huffington Post article.
Here are some more "chick books" I highly recommend: Eat, Pray, Love; Breaking Her Fall; The Secret Life of Bees; The Beans of Egypt, Maine; Water for Elephants.
That's it for now -- off to start my next novel -- something on death, canoeing, redemption, water, nature, love...like that.
Besides, I think Oprah likes a lot of the same books I do, as listed on my Huffington Post article.
Here are some more "chick books" I highly recommend: Eat, Pray, Love; Breaking Her Fall; The Secret Life of Bees; The Beans of Egypt, Maine; Water for Elephants.
That's it for now -- off to start my next novel -- something on death, canoeing, redemption, water, nature, love...like that.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Cut and Paste from Huffington Post
Sooooo...I couldn't get the live link to work! So here's the text, for those of you who couldn't make it over there to the Huffington Post
When I was interviewed about my novel The Road From La Cueva on Santa Fe RadioCafe, I was asked why a woman like the main character Ana would not fight harder for her own rights and independence, especially "in this day and age". My answer was: Have you ever heard of a battered women's shelter? A rape crisis center? Have you heard of a woman's plight in a third-world country, or in the third-world countries that exist for many women right here in America? I answered that Ana was the modern equivalent to Edna Pontellier in The Awakening, or Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, or Flaubert's Emma Bovary.
The Ana in my story is constrained, yet passionate. She is subsumed by a controlling husband, but desperately craving her own fulfillment. It is the age-old story of male domination and woman's struggle for fulfillment within real or perceived boundaries. What I like most about Ana is that through hardship and grim determination, she learns to look with her own eyes, to feel with her own heart. Unlike the tragic characters in the novels mentioned above, she discovers a deep well of resilience and compassion, with room for growth and freedom. Ana's story is one of a leap of faith, away from despair and toward life at its fullest.
This type of 'survival' response to oppression is not automatic, despite our relatively recent decades of feminism and "liberation". Women everywhere are still afraid -- of their husbands, of themselves and their own urges, of danger, of judgment. I wrote the book so that those who are disenfranchised might be empowered -- so that women who now see through the eyes of fear might learn, as Ana does, to navigate themselves through small but profound changes, into new ways of living, of relating to friends, their children, themselves.
I have spoken to many women about the book -- in New Mexico, Texas, and Maine, so far. I find that the women who understand it and love it the best are those who have experienced a similar oppression. I know that "in this day and age", women may technically have all the choices available to them that would allow them to live free and complete lives. But I also know that many of us, like Ana, do not readily have the tools or knowledge or skills to do so.
Look at some of the books in Oprah's book club:
Sula and The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve
Here on Earth by Alice Hoffman
What are these if not depictions of women who have been weakened by their patriarchal worlds, and who have learned, painfully, of the need to move beyond such worlds?
Jane Brunton, one of the book reviewers featured on my blog www.sheila-novel.blogspot.com says:
[You depict] the way that our early familial relationships form the unseen scars that twist and warp all future relationships. When our lives are ruled by a controlling parent, we are ripe and ready for the plucking by a controlling partner. And how the controlee, almost feeling she deserves this treatment, becomes subversive rather than rearing up and fighting it out or simply scuttling away in the night...
And Linda Bankard says:
I could not put this book down. To me it was a true love story, not of the usual type that is so common, but a love story of a woman for her child, her father and a friend. When Ana was able to love herself, she found she was able to be loved by a man and not be his possession. This book will stay with me for a long time.
Why was my interviewer so doubtful of the relevance of such a theme in "this day and age"? I can only be grateful, for her and the many other young women who have apparently not known such oppression, for the women's movement that has provided such freedom for them. But I must also stress, as I did in the book, that many women today are not so lucky.
If you are a woman who has been oppressed, or even if you just know of one, get the book. Read it, and learn why Theresa Studer said:
This book could pertain to any number of women around the world in trouble. Ana learned that life is not always what you're handed, and you can change the outcome. [The Road From La Cueva] captured me, educated me, and let me see that there are true friends and love out there, you only have to reach for them.
When I was interviewed about my novel The Road From La Cueva on Santa Fe RadioCafe, I was asked why a woman like the main character Ana would not fight harder for her own rights and independence, especially "in this day and age". My answer was: Have you ever heard of a battered women's shelter? A rape crisis center? Have you heard of a woman's plight in a third-world country, or in the third-world countries that exist for many women right here in America? I answered that Ana was the modern equivalent to Edna Pontellier in The Awakening, or Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, or Flaubert's Emma Bovary.
The Ana in my story is constrained, yet passionate. She is subsumed by a controlling husband, but desperately craving her own fulfillment. It is the age-old story of male domination and woman's struggle for fulfillment within real or perceived boundaries. What I like most about Ana is that through hardship and grim determination, she learns to look with her own eyes, to feel with her own heart. Unlike the tragic characters in the novels mentioned above, she discovers a deep well of resilience and compassion, with room for growth and freedom. Ana's story is one of a leap of faith, away from despair and toward life at its fullest.
This type of 'survival' response to oppression is not automatic, despite our relatively recent decades of feminism and "liberation". Women everywhere are still afraid -- of their husbands, of themselves and their own urges, of danger, of judgment. I wrote the book so that those who are disenfranchised might be empowered -- so that women who now see through the eyes of fear might learn, as Ana does, to navigate themselves through small but profound changes, into new ways of living, of relating to friends, their children, themselves.
I have spoken to many women about the book -- in New Mexico, Texas, and Maine, so far. I find that the women who understand it and love it the best are those who have experienced a similar oppression. I know that "in this day and age", women may technically have all the choices available to them that would allow them to live free and complete lives. But I also know that many of us, like Ana, do not readily have the tools or knowledge or skills to do so.
Look at some of the books in Oprah's book club:
Sula and The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve
Here on Earth by Alice Hoffman
What are these if not depictions of women who have been weakened by their patriarchal worlds, and who have learned, painfully, of the need to move beyond such worlds?
Jane Brunton, one of the book reviewers featured on my blog www.sheila-novel.blogspot.com says:
[You depict] the way that our early familial relationships form the unseen scars that twist and warp all future relationships. When our lives are ruled by a controlling parent, we are ripe and ready for the plucking by a controlling partner. And how the controlee, almost feeling she deserves this treatment, becomes subversive rather than rearing up and fighting it out or simply scuttling away in the night...
And Linda Bankard says:
I could not put this book down. To me it was a true love story, not of the usual type that is so common, but a love story of a woman for her child, her father and a friend. When Ana was able to love herself, she found she was able to be loved by a man and not be his possession. This book will stay with me for a long time.
Why was my interviewer so doubtful of the relevance of such a theme in "this day and age"? I can only be grateful, for her and the many other young women who have apparently not known such oppression, for the women's movement that has provided such freedom for them. But I must also stress, as I did in the book, that many women today are not so lucky.
If you are a woman who has been oppressed, or even if you just know of one, get the book. Read it, and learn why Theresa Studer said:
This book could pertain to any number of women around the world in trouble. Ana learned that life is not always what you're handed, and you can change the outcome. [The Road From La Cueva] captured me, educated me, and let me see that there are true friends and love out there, you only have to reach for them.
Live Link to Huffington Post
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