Paula: A Memoir (P.S.)
by Isabel Allende
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Book Summary Information
Author: Isabel AllendeEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-04-01
ISBN: 0061564907
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Book Reviews of Paula: A Memoir (P.S.)
Book Review: Loss and Understanding
Summary: 5 Stars
A writer who can make you laugh, smile, and cry in the same chapter is indeed a writer to be cherished. Such is the case with Allende's Paula. As a mother, I suffered with Allende's description of her struggle to keep her comatose daughter alive, yet amid the tragedy she could digress and recall earlier periods of laughter and funny irony. Even in the midst of the anguish of trying to find a way to communicate with her inert daughter, she found comic relief in the drama of the lives of other patients in the hospital. The author provides compelling stories of her early childhood, great loves, and introduces a parade of interesting characters. All these are gently interwoven with a description of historical events and political turmoil in Chile creating a provocative glimpse of an era which I suspect most US readers were probably unaware. A tender and sensitive description of loss, tragedy, and of finding peace, Paula is indeed one of my more revered reads for this year.
Summary of Paula: A Memoir (P.S.)
When Isabel Allende's daughter, Paula, became gravely ill and fell into a coma, the author began to write the story of her family for her unconscious child. In the telling, bizarre ancestors appear before our eyes; we hear both delightful and bitter childhood memories, amazing anecdotes of youthful years, the most intimate secrets passed along in whispers. With Paula, Allende has written a powerful autobiography whose straightforward acceptance of the magical and spiritual worlds will remind readers of her first book, The House of the Spirits.
"Listen, Paula. I am going to tell you a story so that when you wake up you will not feel so lost." So says Chilean writer Isabel Allende (The House of the Spirits) in the opening lines of the luminous, heart-rending memoir she wrote while her 28-year-old daughter Paula lay in a coma. In its pages, she ushers an assortment of outrageous relatives into the light: her stepfather, an amiable liar and tireless debater; grandmother Meme, blessed with second sight; and delinquent uncles who exultantly torment Allende and her brothers. Irony and marvelous flights of fantasy mix with the icy reality of Paula's deathly illness as Allende sketches childhood scenes in Chile and Lebanon; her uncle Salvatore Allende's reign and ruin as Chilean president; her struggles to shake off or find love; and her metamorphosis into a writer.
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