When I was Elena by Ellen Urbani Hilterbrand
This post is to recommend a book entitled When I was Elena by Ellen Urbani Hilterbrand. My wife and I have both read this book and highly recommend it. With the permission of the author, I am publishing an excerpt about Ellen from the dust jacket, an excerpt from the book, and a couple of quotes from reviewers. Enjoy the excerpts.
Douglas Quinn is the author of Blue Heron Marsh, etal. (www.douglasquinn.com)
Excerpt about the author from the dust jacket:
When I was Elena is an extraordinary account of a young American woman's sojourn in the guerrilla-infested mountains of Guatemala. Shattering the concept of a typical memoir, the author's personal story is interlaced, chapter-for-chapter, with tales told from the perspectives of seven indigenous women she encountered during her journey. At once a coming-of-age adventure and a haunting history of the struggle to overcome oppression both personal and curltural?this genre-breaching work heralds the arrival of a daring new talent in American literature.
Excerpt from Chapter 1:
Darkness hugged tight to the ground and night loomed hot and dry over the site where the bus deposited me on the side of the highway. The scrub brush scratched at my ankles with spiny tentacles of welcome as a trio of lizards followed the fading fumes of the bus down the lonely two-lane road. The succulent and tropical Guatemala I expected, this was not. National Geographic lied. The broad-leafed, dew-dripping rain forest images peeking out from the glossy pages of the magazine with headlines coaxing "Guatemala, Land of Lushness" existed in some place other than the country beneath my feet. My toes touched turf crossed by cowboy boots on the heels of gunslingers who defended their honor, their women, and their drunken opinions with loaded pistols and lewd gestures toward what they apparently presumed were well-endowed genitalia. The Wild West turned crude. Even in the pitch dark of the unlit night, the smell of sage and dust badgered me with each breath?a constant reminder that no tropical paradise would be found here.
Having visited this town whose name I couldn't pronounce once, the month before, I knew the mountain range must still be there, to my left, a ghostly apparition loitering long enough for my eyes to adjust to the black night. As it claimed its shape, other, more diminutive monuments hovered, crouched, asserted their position at the base of the towering giant. A cactus. An iguana. The bus stop (an elementary lean-to with one slumbering drunk prostrate just outside its range of coverage). All hugged the toes of the mountain on the opposite side of the road. A broken kiosk stood sentinel next door. The specter of the leathery woman who manned it during the day stared me down; echoes of her pitch: "Coca-Cola! Coca, Coca, Coca-Cola!" mixed with the cry of an owl, and together they screamed at abandoned me while darkness engulfed me thick into her exhaust-laced embrace.
Loneliness, that age-old companion of night, almost brushed past me, when with an arrogant brace of my chin I reminded myself, "You've visited here once before." But just as swiftly, my mind spewed forth images of the faces and places I met on that one brief visit: a vision of eyes, noses and mouths swirling together to create a spiraling, incarnate mass. The phantasm loomed large, reminding me that I remembered not a single name, nor the path to the house I could rent for 80 quetzales a month. So loneliness, that sly denizen of caves in the spirit, quickly drifted back and clutched me deep within her grasp.
Quotes from reviewers:
"...a powerful and passionate memoir by a gutsy stranger in a troubled land."
-John Nichols, author of The Milagro Beanfield War
"Armed against Guatemala's crushing povery and rampant hazards with a well-grounded blend of will and pluck, Hiltebrand finds an unexpected lode of humor that she mines to impressive effect."
-Publishers Weekly
"...Hiltebrand does something amazing here: She takes risks in her writing that are even more impressive than her actual journey. She possesses a magical empathy."
-Francisco Goldman, author of The Long Night of White Chickens
Ellen has recently joined the Gather group and her page may be found at www.ellenurbani.gather.com
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