Description
From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. In this deeply revealing second memoir, after Paula , novelist Allende ( The House of Spirits ) utilizes her family and the complex network of their relationships as the linchpin of the narrative. While weaving in her candid opinions on love and marriage, friendship, drug addiction, the writing life and religious fanaticism, Allende continues to work through the grief over her daughter's death. In these years without you I have learned to manage sadness, making it my ally. Little by little your absence and other losses in my life are turning into a sweet nostalgia. And though Allende's insight is keen, her prose polished and her language hypnotic, it's the stories of her close-knit family that move the memoir forward. We lived as a tribe, Chilean style; we were almost always together. While much of the story is infused with melancholy, her world is by no means without humor, mirth and wisdom. She celebrates friends' triumphs and exploits their foibles, including the odyssey of the boobs, without taking herself too seriously. This is a book to savor. (Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. "...Ms.Allende...executes this epistolary memoir with the same authenticity and poetry that grace her fiction...Ms. Allende is a survivor worth reading and emulating." -- Dallas Morning News "A powerful memoir" -- Seattle Post-Intelligencer "Allende is a genius." -- Los Angeles Times Book Review "Allendex92s trademark magical realism is ever present...This high-spirited, emotionally packed book enables readers to get a closer look at the life of a much-loved writer." -- Library Journal "Deeply revealing . . . Allendex92s insight is keen, her prose polished and her language hypnotic . . . the stories of her close-knit family . . . move the memoir forward . . . This is a book to savor." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Deeply revealingx85Allendex92s insight is keen, her prose polished and her language hypnoticx85the stories of her close-knit familyx85move the memoir forwardx85Her world is by no means without humor mirth and wisdom. This is a book to savor." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) Born in Peru and raised in Chile, Isabel Allende is the author of eight novels, including, most recently, Zorro, Portrait in Sepia, and Daughter of Fortune . She has also written a collection of stories; three memoirs, including My Invented Country and Paula ; and a trilogy of children's novels. Her books have been translated into more than twenty-seven languages and have become bestsellers across four continents. In 2004 she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Isabel Allende lives in California. Nacida en PerÚ y criada en Chile, Isabel Allende es la autora de nueve novelas incluyendo mÁs recientemente Zorro , Retrato en Sepia , Hija de la Fortuna e InÉs del Alma MÍa . TambiÉn ha escrito cuentos cortos, tres libros autobiogrÁficos incluyendo Mi PaÍs Inventado y Paula , y una trilogÍa de libros para jÓvenes. Sus libros han sido traducidos a mÁs de 27 idiomas y son bestsellers a travÉs del mundo entero. En 2004, fue nombrada a la Academia de Artes y Letras de los Estados Unidos. Vive en California. Read more
Features & Highlights
- In this heartfelt memoir, Isabel Allende reconstructs the painful reality of her own life in the wake of tragic loss—the death of her daughter, Paula. Recalling the past thirteen years from the daily letters the author and her mother, who lives in Chile, wrote to each other, Allende bares her soul in a book that is as exuberant and full of life as its creator. She recounts the stories of the wildly eccentric, strong-minded, and eclectic tribe she gathers around her that becomes a new kind of family.
- Throughout, Allende shares her thoughts on love, marriage, motherhood, spirituality and religion, infidelity, addiction, and memory. Here, too, are the amazing stories behind Allendes books, the superstitions that guide her writing process, and her adventurous travels. Ultimately,
- The Sum of Our Days
- offers a unique tour of this gifted writers inner world and of the relationships that have become essential to her life and her work.
- Narrated with warmth, humor, exceptional candor, and wisdom,
- The Sum of Our Days
- is a portrait of a contemporary family, bound together by the love, fierce loyalty, and stubborn determination of a beloved, indomitable matriarch.
