Fruit of the Drunken Tree

May 21, 2018
Rojas Contreras packs her coming-of-age debut full of details about life in early 1990s Colombia during the last year of Pablo Escobar’s reign of terror. Seven-year-old Chula’s sheltered life in a gated community with her mother and older sister Cassandra cracks open with the arrival of 13-year-old maid Petrona. Petrona comes from a nearby shanty town and fascinates the implausibly precocious Chula, whose greatest excitements are spying on the richest lady in their neighborhood and hunting ghosts. Chula’s formidable mother, Alma, grew up in a slum and copes with standoffish and judgmental well-heeled neighbors while her husband works in the oil fields. The family temporarily flees to Alma’s home village to escape Bogotá’s escalating violence, while Chula and Petrona get drawn into a situation that will eventually pose a dire threat. Chula’s fixation on the news allows smooth introduction of the historical events surrounding Colombia’s instability and Escobar’s eventual death. The skeletal chapters from Petrona’s perspective provide some belated explanations for the danger she exposed the family to. This striking novel offers an atmospheric journey into the narrow choices for even a wealthy family as society crumbles around them.

Narrators Marisol Ramirez and Almarie Guerra team up to deliver this story of how 7-year-old Chula and her family's 15-year-old maid, Petrona, forge an unlikely bond as each struggles to find stability and safety in the waning years of Pablo Escobar's violent hold on Colombia. Early on, Ramirez infuses Chula's irrepressible curiosity and intelligence with na�vet�; whereas, Guerra highlights Petrona's hopefulness, buried under the weight of her familial responsibilities. As the audiobook progresses, the narrators adapt their delivery to reflect the escalating fear and violence that surround the girls--one sheltered, one world-weary--as they realize they can't escape their country's woes. This dual coming-of-age story, inspired by author Roja Contreras's own observations, shows how the effects of a guerilla drug culture touch everyone, even children. C.B.L. � AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine