Book Review: Isabel Allende's latest strong female protagonist is a journalist
In novels such as 'The House of the Spirits,' 'Eva Luna,' and more recently, 'Violeta,' indomitable women take center stage and drive dramatic narratives conjured into being with a splash of magic realism by the writer who was born in Peru and raised in Chile.
It's no different in Allende's latest book, 'My Name is Emilia del Valle,' which features an adventurous journalist in San Francisco during the late 1800s. Young Emilia is surprisingly intrepid for a female of her time, challenging and vaulting over gender barriers as she moves from writing cheap novels under a male pseudonym to pushing for her real byline — as a woman — to be published above her newspaper articles.
Much of Emilia's intellectual curiosity and confidence comes from her stepfather, a Spanish speaking schoolteacher who marries her pregnant mother, a novice Catholic nun abandoned after a romance with a wealthy Chilean aristocrat.
Although Allende initially sets her story in the United States, she gradually moves the action to Chile when Emilia persuades a newspaper editor to let her travel to the South American country to help cover Chile's civil war, emphasizing her Spanish language skills.
She's dispatched along with fellow newspaper correspondent Eric Whelan, who will focus on the main news while she handles the features.
Along with the professional challenge, Emilia wants to learn more about the father she has never known, and herself. Once in Chile, Emilia faces extreme dangers she has never imagined and questions where she came from and where she's going.
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