With lyrical insight and emotional depth, The Many Mothers of Dolores Moore explores what it means to lose your foundation and build a new one from memory, love, and the places that call you home. A powerful story about identity, ancestry, and the invisible threads that tie us together.
Description
International Latino Book Award Gold Medal Winner
Winner of the Friends of American Writers Literature Award
For fans of Rebecca Serle and Elizabeth Acevedo, a “lyrical, poignant, and powerful” (Yamile Saied Méndez, award-winning author of All Roads Lead to Rome) work of magical realism about a woman’s journey to Colombia to discover her roots and what it means to carry our ancestors with us.
Dolores Moore’s dead relatives refuse to stay quiet. They trail after her like a Greek chorus with no respect for personal boundaries, filling her crumbling Victorian with unsolicited advice, family gossip, and increasingly urgent opinions about her return to Colombia—the birthplace she barely remembers.
Dorrie would rather stay in Minneapolis, where the problems are manageable: an ex she hasn’t forgotten, a cartography career that’s evaporated overnight, a creaky inherited house, and two needy orange cats. But when a cryptic hand-drawn map surfaces and an old flame offers to watch the house, the voices leave her no choice.
So begins a journey to Colombia guided by photographs of her mother, half-remembered stories about her father, and a little bit of magic as Dorrie searches for the truth about her family origins, her ancestral roots, and what’s been calling her to her rightful place.
Reviews
"Dolores Moore’s longing to know her own and her mothers’ stories tenderly intertwines hearts across generations, landscapes and cultures with love, humor and vividly descriptive narrative. To experience this exquisitely written novel is to join in the wonderment of the quest, supporting and treasuring Dolores in the company of her unseen yet clearly and delightfully heard mothers and ancestors."
"Anika Fajardo's charming and poignant new book is a map of loss, motherhood, and magic that welcomes the reader home. There are tender revelations, vivid details and funny moments throughout. Truly, what a joy it was to spend time with "Dolores" and her cast of wise and delightful mothers in these pages!"
"Sometimes we need to tunnel into the past in order to find our way forward. Anika Fajardo's The Many Mothers of Dolores Moore is a vibrant, expansive, warm-hearted novel about the places that shape us, the loved ones who never leave us, and all the wrong turns that eventually bring us right back to where we belong."
