Fictional writer Alma Cruz is done with her writing career when she builds a cemetery for her unfinished stories. In The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez (published April 2024), Alma’s story drafts, which have been buried in boxes in the ground or burned, now speak out from the ground. At once a celebration of all stories, big and small, as well as a journey of magical realism, The Cemetery of Untold Stories shows how everyone’s stories are mixed and mingled with each others. No man is an island, and one’s stories are somehow connected to others’ stories.
The Cemetery of Untold Stories follows the lives of a few different people, but especially that of Filomena, the care-taker of the cemetery. She is practical but does what Alma asks and listens at the graves, where the voices of the characters buried now speak to her. So, as we learn about what Filomena’s life has been and now is, we also hear the stories of the buried, including Alma’s father, Manuel Cruz, and Bienvenida, the abandoned ex-wife of the former dictator of the Dominican Republic. Alma had started writing their stories, but had stopped: now, as voices from the ground, their stories weave together. Even Filomena’s life story finds connection into that of the others.
The fictional author, Alma Cruz, is a major character in the book, as she is the one who starts the cemetery, and she is the one who has written drafts that have now been burned and buried. And yet, she is also a hands-off presence. In a sense, since she has abandoned the stories under the ground, she is no longer needed. She is just a shadow, although a significant one. She is the one who has provided the funding for the future of the cemetery, which will become a park after she is gone. As well, she is the one who has returned from living in America to living back in the Dominican Republic. Thus, that sense of place is an essential part of the novel too. Manuel Cruz had had to flee political prosecution. Bienvenida too had to leave her home; now they can be at rest back in their home country. Alma has brought it all full-circle, as it needed to be.
So, although Alma had left her stories unfinished, it is in the unfinished state that they can weave together. They have been laid to rest, but in the magical way that these things happen, they now are unable to stay silent: Manuel’s story, Bienvenida’s story, Filomena, her sister, and Alma as well. Everyone’s stories may seem unique, and even though the separate characters don’t know how they are connected, we, looking on from outside, can see it. What a satisfying book. I would enjoy a reread.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advance review copy of this book provided by the publisher via NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
