The Cemetery of Untold Stories

The Cemetery of Untold Stories

Great American novelist Julia Alvarez, bestselling author of  In the Time of the Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents , returns with a luminescent novel about storytelling that reads like an instant classic. “Only an alchemist as wise and sure as Alvarez could swirl the elements of folklore and the flavor of magical realism around her modern prose and make it all sing . . . Lively, joyous . . . often witty, occasionally somber and elegiac.” —Luis Alberto Urrea,  The New York Times Book Review "Engaging and written in a playful, crystal-clear prose, this novel explores friendship, love, sisterhood, living between cultures, and how people can be haunted by the things they don’t finish . . . Entertaining . . . Heartwarming." —Gabino Iglesias,  The Boston Globe **Named a Most Anticipated Book by the  New York Times ,  Washington Post , Today.com, Goodreads, B&N Reads ,  Literary Hub , HipLatina ,  BookPage , BBC.com, Zibby Mag, and more** Alma Cruz, the celebrated writer at the heart of The Cemetery of Untold Stories , doesn’t want to end up like her friend, a novelist who fought so long and hard to finish a book that it threatened her sanity. So when Alma inherits a small plot of land in the Dominican Republic, her homeland, she has the beautiful idea of turning it into a place to bury her untold stories—literally. She creates a graveyard for the manuscript drafts and the characters whose lives she tried and failed to bring to life and who still haunt her.   Alma wants her characters to rest in peace. But they have other ideas and soon begin to defy their author: they talk back to her and talk to one another behind her back, rewriting and revising themselves. Filomena, a local woman hired as the groundskeeper, becomes a sympathetic listener to the secret tales unspooled by Alma's characters. Among them, Bienvenida, dictator Rafael Trujillo's abandoned wife who was erased from the official history, and Manuel Cruz, a doctor who fought in the Dominican underground and escaped to the United States.   The Cemetery of Untold Stories asks: Whose stories get to be told, and whose buried? Finally, Alma finds the meaning she and her characters yearn for in the everlasting vitality of stories. Julia Alvarez reminds us that the stories of our lives are never truly finished, even at the end. Named a Most Anticipated Book of the Year by the New York Times , Washington Post , Today.com, Goodreads,  Literary Hub , BookPage , BBC.com, and Zibby Mag ! “Only an alchemist as wise and sure as Alvarez could swirl the elements of folklore and the flavor of magical realism around her modern prose and make it all sing... lively, joyous, full of modern details and old tall tales… often witty, occasionally somber and elegiac.”― Luis Alberto Urrea , The New York Times Book Review "Warm and graceful... a riveting story... In the richness of Alvarez’s book... “The Cemetery of Untold Stories” proves to be an imaginative celebration of living, oral traditions, and our capacity even outside the gates of publishing, to bring our stories of the past into the future."― Anita Felicelli , Los Angeles Times Book Review “Engaging and written in a playful, crystal-clear prose, this novel explores friendship, love, sisterhood, living between cultures, and how people can be haunted by the things they don’t finish. A literary pioneer known for breaking ground in terms of centering the experiences of Latinx women and writing bilingually, Alvarez does so again here... entertaining... At the end, one message remains: Alvarez has seen it all as an author, but her love for telling stories remains as big as ever. Heartwarming.”― Gabino Igelsias , The Boston Globe “In this imaginative new novel from critically acclaimed literary icon Julia Alvarez, untold stories are buried in a graveyard and laid to rest … until the characters decide to revolt.”― Today.com “Mystical and moving, The Cemetery of Untold Stories shows why some stories must be told no matter how hard you try to bury them.”― TIME.com “Mystifying, compelling, and often wryly funny… Julia Alvarez delivers a lyrical, thought-provoking meditation on truth, complicated family narratives, and the question of whose stories get told.”― Shelf Awareness “A rich and moving saga of Dominican history emerges, embodied in the lives of irresistible characters… Her gifts for glowing prose and powerful narrative are still strong. Buried stories find their way to the light in this finely crafted novel.”― Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Uplifting… Throughout, Alvarez seamlessly melds magical realism with heartfelt character portraits. This brims with the intoxicating power of storytelling.”― Publishers Weekly "Alvarez brings the magic again in this nesting box of a novel. These tales… are linked in surprising ways, most especially in a humanity that transcends pathos and passion. May Alvarez continue to excavate stories for many years to come!"― Boo