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Stones for Ibarra

Harriet Doerr

Start date: June 1, 2018

Finish date: August 31, 2018

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Apr 18, 2018 Elizabeth (Alaska) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: late-20th-century, 5-star-reads, women

I always glance at the copyright page of a book, and in this case I immediately panicked. For the current challenge, I needed to be reading a book published in 1984, and the copyright started with 1978 (and then '81, '83, and '84). Sometimes the GR information is incorrect, but this was going to be beyond disappointing - and I was going to have to scurry around and find a replacement book. It turns out that the earlier copyrights were for stories published before the final publication of the nov I always glance at the copyright page of a book, and in this case I immediately panicked. For the current challenge, I needed to be reading a book published in 1984, and the copyright started with 1978 (and then '81, '83, and '84). Sometimes the GR information is incorrect, but this was going to be beyond disappointing - and I was going to have to scurry around and find a replacement book. It turns out that the earlier copyrights were for stories published before the final publication of the novel. Yes, stories. This is definitely a novel, but the construction is somewhat similar to Olive Kitteridge.

Sometimes reading a lot of stories by a single author can feel repetitious, and this is true about some of the chapters in this. Here is the story of Richard and Sara Everton, but there is also the story of Ibarra, a village remotely located in the interior mountains of Mexico. Some 50 years earlier than our story was the 1910 Revolution, when Richard Everton's grandfather was forced to abandon his mining operation and flee the country. The Evertons return to Ibarra to reclaim the mine, to reinvigorate the village, and to live their lives.

The driver of the station wagon is Richard Everton, a blue-eyed, black-haired stubborn man who will die thirty years sooner than he now imagines. On the seat beside him is his wife, Sara, who imagines neither his death nor her own, imminent or remote as they may be. Instead she sees, in one of its previous incarnations, the adobe house where they intend to sleep tonight.

With this forecasting in the first paragraph, we know - or think we know - where the story is heading. It is no spoiler, then, to say that we come to know Sara and the villagers as Richard gets sicker and sicker. I had great empathy for Sara. Although we had a positive outcome (as Sara and Richard do not), last fall my husband and I looked squarely in the face of his cancer. Most of the early chapters did not involve much emotion, and I was not entirely prepared for the last 20 or so pages. I should have, but did not, expect such a powerful depiction of a wife's loss. And it is this last that nudges the story over the 4-star line into my 5-star reads. ...more

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