Unveiling 'Family Lore' by Elizabeth Acevedo: A Tale of Dominican Heritage and Sisterhood
A Tale of Resilience and Change
Elizabeth Acevedo is a Dominican-American author, poet, and writer who weaves Family Lore, a story that follows the lives of each of the Marte women, spinning together the past of the Dominican Republic and the present New York City.
Told with Acevedo’s unique voice and envisioned use of prose, this is a searing, emotional, and comedic look at womanhood, for the women who came before us and the ones we are yet to become.
In Family Lore, Acevedo paints a portrait of the Marte women: the mothers, sisters, and daughters of a Dominican-American family. The four sisters, Matilde, Flor, Pastora, and Camille, leave their home in the Santo Domingo countryside and raise their children in New York City.
Ona, daughter of Flor, and her cousin Yadi, daughter of Pastora, try to mark out their own stories while also continuing their family's legacy.
The story shifts between first-person and third-person points of view. Ona, the first daughter of the Marte women, is our narrator. She describes her own experiences in the first person and narrates the lives of the other Marte women in the third person, reinforcing the feeling of closeness and aloofness found in this story all at once.
Sisterhood, Heritage, and Magical Realism in Black Literature
Ona intimately knows herself, but her family seems to always exist on a different plane; somewhere she can only reach but never touch. Ona is forced to confront and unearth these parts through stories, myths, and interviews, after her mother predicts her own death and plans a living wake for.
Family Lore paints a portrait of resilience, depicting the story of four sisters who immigrate to a new country and carve out lives for themselves and their families in the face of hardship.
They navigate their husbands’ indiscretions and their children’s lack of understanding with determination. Importantly, the narrative delves into the idea of breaking generational curses and striving for a better life.
The women in Family Lore are not flawless; in fact, some may not even be considered virtuous.
However, the focus has never been on righteousness. Rather, it explores the choices these women made within the constraints of their circumstances. It examines their existence under the pervasive influence of patriarchy that shaped every aspect of their lives, from birth to death.The magic in this story plays a dual role, serving as both a powerful force that provided access to unimaginable worlds and a source of friction that complicated their lives.
It embodies their very essence, defining and challenging them in equal measure. Family Lore is an engaging read for those intrigued by the complexities of family dynamics, particularly the relationships between sisters and generations of women, enriched by a touch of magical realism.