Welcome to Shelf Life, ELLE.com’s books column, in which authors share their most memorable reads. Whether you’re on the hunt for a book to console you, move you profoundly, or make you laugh, consider a recommendation from the writers in our series, who, like you (since you’re here), love books. Perhaps one of their favorite titles will become one of yours, too.
When Julia Alvarez downsized to a new house in Vermont, her husband surprised her by hanging a butterfly in a top-floor window so visitors could easily recognize their home. Alvarez, of course, is the author of In the Time of the Butterflies, a fictionalized version of the story of the revolutionary Mirabal sisters, four Dominican women who fought the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, three of whom lost their lives in doing so. The UN declared the date the sisters died, November 25, as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. And Alvarez’s book was selected by the National Endowment for the Arts for its national Big Read program, was a finalist for the 1995 National Book Critics Circle Award in fiction, and was adapted into a film starring Salma Hayek and Edward James Olmos. Now, 30 years after its publication, comes Alvarez’s latest, The Cemetery of Untold Stories (Algonquin Books).
Alvarez is also honorary chairwoman of the Mariposa DR Foundation (mariposa is Spanish for butterfly) and was elected to the National Members Council of the PEN American Center. She has written five other novels, three books of nonfiction, three poetry collections, and 11 books for children and young adults. One of those novels is her first, published when she was 41, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, loosely based on she and her own three sisters adjusting to life in Queens, New York after fleeing the Dominican Republic because of their dissident father’s political activities.
The New York-born author retired as writer in residence at her alma mater of Middlebury College (she got her master’s degree in creative writing from Syracuse University). She inspired a Barbie; reads while brushing her teeth; gave her archive to the University of Texas at Austin; will be the subject of a PBS American Masters documentary, Something to Declare; has a meditation practice; is called Mia (Spanish for mine) by her grandchildren; and was the daughter of a UN ambassador. Her many achievements include a National Medal of Arts awarded by President Barack Obama, Latina Leader Award in Literature from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, the Hispanic Heritage Award in Literature, and the Pura Belpré and Américas Awards for her books for young readers.
She is a cofounder, along with her husband Bill Eichner, of a 260-acre organic, sustainable coffee farm in the DR called Alta Gracia, which they donated to the Mariposa DR Foundation. She also cofounded Border of Lights, which promotes peace between Haiti and the Dominican Republic as well as other troubled borders across the globe, and cofounded/is the executive director of The Scheherazade Project, which promotes social justice through the arts.
Likes: Patria Libre bilingual bookstore, owned by Patria Marie, the granddaughter of Patria Mirabal; The Little Free Library at Butterfly Ridge, which she asked for her March birthday in the midst of the pandemic. Dislikes: I Love Lucy. Good at: Admiring flowers Bill grows on their farm (including trout lilies, daffodils, primroses, snow glories, scilia). Bad at: Math.
The book that...
…helped me through loss:
Gilgamesh. When I lost my sister several years ago, grief paralyzed me. Only poetry—certain poetry—(and short poetic novels) seemed to reach me, the older and more traveled down the generations the better. I must have read every translation of Gilgamesh. A story of loss involving a journey to the underworld in search of a lost friend and answers. I felt accompanied.
…made me miss a train stop:
Book of Questions, Pablo Neruda’s last book of poems, published posthumously, filled with short koan-type questions a child might ask, whimsical and profound. I taped myself reading them in Spanish so I could listen to them while driving. First time I played them, I missed my turn off the highway and had to drive to the next exit.
…made me weep uncontrollably:
Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf, a choreopoem I first encountered in a performance in San Francisco with my then-husband. I sobbed and sobbed, even when the lights came on, even after said-husband, a Brit, told me to get a grip, a response which, along with the Shange’s play, confirmed, Enuf is enuf.
…I recommend over and over again:
Jenny Erpenbeck’s Go, Went, Gone, a novel that beautifully articulates the slow politicization of a retired, apolitical Classics professor, confronted with refugees from the African continent.
...shaped my worldview:
Growing up in the Dominican Republic without many books or the inclination to read the few there were, I got an incredible gift from the only auntie who was a reader, The Arabian Nights. The idea that a girl in a bloody regime could save her life and the lives of all the women in her kingdom by telling stories—oh my! I was launched as a storyteller.
...made me rethink a long-held belief:
Heavy, I know, but Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire liberated me as a teacher from having to be “the one who knows.” A useful approach for writers in creating complex characters—best to listen and let them lead you!
…I swear I’ll finish one day:
I’ve started on Proust’s In Search of Lost Time any number of times but a 7-volume commitment . . . So many great books, so little time. My paradise will be having all the time in the world to read all the great books I’ve vowed to start and finish.
...I read in one sitting, it was that good:
Foster by Claire Keegan, a short book, granted, but not a false note or distraction in the writing. I wolfed it down and had to reread it again in order to savor and admire.
…currently sits on my nightstand:
Not my nightstand, or I wouldn’t fall asleep, thinking of all the great reading I’m missing! But there’s a stack just outside the bedroom. At the top of the tower, My Death by Lisa Tuttle. The draw? I was intrigued by a review I read; I am a fan of many of the books published by New York Review of Books; and I love the title.
…I’d pass on to a kid:
If I had a kid, which I don’t, I’d want her/him/they to read Antonio Skármeta’s The Composition, to help them understand what it was like for their mother, their grandparents, their extended Dominican familia, to grow up in a bloody dictatorship.
…I’d give to a new graduate:
Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet has been my go-to gift for new graduates, soulful advice for anyone—not just poets— starting out on their life’s journey.
…made me laugh out loud:
Angie Cruz’s How Not To Drown in a Glass of Water (see below for best title) made me laugh and shake my head, not because the novel was funny—though parts were—but because Angie Cruz really nailed the voice of the main character, Cara Romero, without in any way patronizing/matronizing her.
…I’d like turned into a TV show:
Oh, please, the best books are their own best TV shows!
…I first bought:
As an undergraduate with no money for “extras,” I almost shoplifted Louise Bogan’s The Blue Estuaries. It was one of the few poetry books not on a syllabus offered at the college store. I didn’t know a thing about Louise Bogan. But she was a poet, and I wanted to be a poet. But I didn’t want to start out on my vocation with bad karma. So I put the book back.
...I last bought:
Now that I have the money to buy books. . . I just bought Christian Wiman’s Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries against Despair. I love/need any and all entries against despair, and I trust Wiman’s go-to antidote: poetry.
...has the best title:
Again, Cruz’s How Not To Drown in a Glass of Water—the title is actually derived from an idiom in Spanish, “ahogarse en un vaso de agua,” our version of making mountains out of molehills.
...has the best opening line:
Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts opens with “‘You must not tell anyone,’ my mother said, ‘what I am about to tell you.’” That line could well be the unwritten first sentence of many memoirs and autobiographical novels by Latina authors of my generation.
...has the greatest ending:
“Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision” from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. I’ll be plagiarizing this one at my own ending. . .
…broke my heart:
They all do, the books I love. They break my heart and put it back together again.
…helped me become a better writer:
All good writing helps me improve my own.
...I’ve re-read the most:
Every January for over 25 years, I reread T.S. Eliot’s book-length poem, Four Quartets. It sets me up for the year. Written in the then darkest of times, before and during World War II, it has proven to be sturdy string in the labyrinth of the challenging times we’ve all been living through, with minotaurs at every turn.
...I consider literary comfort food:
Any book that deeply engages me is a comfort. I feel accompanied and enlarged. Most recently, Elizabeth Strout’s Lucy by the Sea, helped me make meaning of the global trauma we all experienced during the Covid pandemic.
…I would have blurbed if asked:
Claudia Piñeiro’s Elena Knows. Until I read this amazing novel, I hadn’t known of this Argentinian writer. A mother suffering from debilitating Parkinson’s goes on a day’s journey searching for her daughter’s killer. (P.S. I did get my wish to blurb a Piñeiro book when her publisher, and mine, Charco Press, asked me to blurb a translation of Piñeiro’s A Little Luck, which I also loved.
…inspired me to donate to a cause:
Tracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World made me a believer and a donor to Partners in Health, an organization to address the health needs of triage nations and populations with respect, cooperation, and bold compassion.
...makes me feel seen:
Any book that accurately and eloquently portrays what it is to be alive–even when the lives depicted are totally different from my own–makes me feel seen.
...everyone should read:
I love the great democracy of PYO–pick your own. Enough great books out there for every taste. But if someone is at a loss and needs a little help, I’ll loan you my copy of Manuel Muñoz’s The Consequences or Jeannette Haein’s The All of It or Ron Hansen’s Mariette in Ecstasy. Better yet, buy your own, as these are guaranteed keepers.
...fills me with hope:
Rebecca Solnit’s Hope in the Dark, which she wrote to give her activist friends hope during the dark time of the second Bush’s presidency, is more than ever relevant now when the times are even darker.
...taught me this Jeopardy!-worthy bit of trivia:
Again, part of what makes a book a good read is when I’m learning new things. From Cat Bohannon’s Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution I found out that only humans and killer whales go through menopause. From Hannah Carlson’s Pockets: An Intimate History of How We Keep Things Close: I discovered why I often can’t find good pockets in my clothes. Gender politics! It was a man’s privilege to have an empty space in which to carry a weapon or store cash.
And who knew Greeks had no word for blue? Which I learned from “Greens and Purples” in Jennifer Grotz’s collection of poems, still falling.
Bonus question: If I could live in any library or bookstore in the world, it would be:
There are grander libraries and more extensive bookstores, but I’ll stick close to home and move into our local Ilsley Public Library in Middlebury, VT. I’d bed down in the children’s section, which has a clawtooth bathtub to sit in and read. If Ilsley doesn’t have a title, I’ll head down the block to the Vermont Bookshop where Becky Dayton, the owner, will order any book I need.
The literary organization/charity I support:
I have a soft spot for poetry organizations since they tend to be under-funded and under-appreciated in their valiant effort to provide the necessary cultural service of keeping poetry–and poets–vital in our culture. Here’s a few worthy ones I support: Poets & Writers, Poetry Society of America, Academy of American Poets. I’m also a loyal supporter of Calyx Press, a publisher of women’s writing and fine art, one of the first to pay attention to my work. On a nationalistic note, Dominican Writers Association has been connecting and nurturing Latinx writers as well as providing workshops, readings, and enrichment to our often underserved communities.
Read Alvarez’s Picks:
Pedagogy of the Oppressed
My Death
The Modern Library In Search of Lost Time
The Blue Estuaries
Mariette in Ecstasy
Elena Knows
To the Lighthouse
