This book is sub-titled ‘A Sister’s Search for Justice,’ and I’ll tell you right now she does not find it. Her sister was murdered by her ex-boyfriend in the 1990s, and the Mexican state has made approximately zero headway in finding him. In any case, I do not think that is what this book is about and I suspect it was sub-titled by the Marketing Dept. What it really is, is the author with the distance of thirty years trying to re-create the last summer of her sister’s life.
She goes through her letters and diaries, and she interviews her friends. It is extremely beautiful, a close reconstruction of few months in the life of an ordinary university student thirty years ago. In fact she focuses very little on the murderer. I did note though how the relationship had all the hallmarks of domestic violence (suicide threats, stalking, etc); but I guess in the ‘90s no one had the language/structures to identify that . No one helped her; she did not seem to think she needed help. I hope now the culture would do better at identifying early that she was in a dangerous pattern. In any case, it’s too late now. I found this epigraph very beautiful.
“They, like us, are alive in
hydrogen, in oxygen; in carbon,
in phosphrous, and iron; in sodium and chlorine”
(Christina Sharpe)
She won the Pulitzer. It’s a lovely tribute. She feels guilty it took her thirty years to do it, but I admire her courage; I can’t imagine opening those letters, even with many more years distance.