April 15, 2023
Apostol's (Bibliolepsy, 2022) periphrastic and digressive story follows Rosario Delgado, a New York-based Filipino immigrant and novelist whose last name, hometown, and profession are coincidentally similar to the author's. She is nicknamed Inday by her mom; a term that can be considered equally affectionate and condescending, providing a hint of the complex mother-daughter dynamics that course throughout the novel. When her mother dies, Rosario delays going home to settle her mom's affairs, but becomes intrigued with the mystery behind a piece of valuable land called La Tercera. Through sardonic reminiscences, readers are given backstories and disjointed events featuring Rosario's numerous family members and acquaintances. Apostol's use of dialect, cultural references, and descriptive details may confound non-Filipino readers. The excessively meandering narrative vividly chronicles the Delgado family's desires, idiosyncrasies, and preoccupations, while the minutiae of the land's provenance and stories, peppered with side-wink remarks on Philippine political and historical events, will either tax readers' patience or engage and amuse.
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Starred review from May 8, 2023
Apostol (Insurrecto) returns with a powerful multigenerational epic of the Philippines. In present-day New York City, Filipina American novelist Rosario Delgado reflects on the life of her late mother, Adina, an aspiring multimedia artist who resembled former Philippines first lady Imelda Marcos. In the 1970s, Adina left her abusive husband in Los Angeles and returned with their children, Rosario and her younger brother, Adino, to her childhood village on the island of Leyte. There, as a seven-year-old who’d been raised in the U.S., Rosario has difficulty adjusting. She plays in her grandparents’ rambling old house and discovers journals written by her great-great-uncle Paco during the Philippine-American War of 1899–1902, revealing how he and Rosario’s great-grandfather Jote fought for independence from the U.S. In later years, Rosario returns from New York and learns that her mother, who is dying, may have been cheated out of a significant inheritance. In addition to the colonial history, Apostol adds scenes of Filipinos marching for democracy during the People Power Revolution in 1986 and making desperate calls to friends and relatives following Supertyphoon Yolanda in 2013. Snippets of Waray, Cebano, and Tagalog enrich a narrative that is by turns gossipy, harrowing, and serene. This is worthy of the modern classics of postcolonial literature. Agent: Kirby Kim, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc.