Tyranny and Butterflies

In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez
Chapel Hill, N.C. : Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1994.
325 p. ; 23 cm.

I'm not sure why I decided to read this book now, but I'm glad I did.  I think I was feeling a little unenthusiastic about the lightness of some of the YA fantasy books and wanted something with more substance.  I also had not read Alvarez yet and wanted to, so it seemed like a good a time as any. 

In the Time of Butterflies is the fictionalized account of four Dominican sisters - three of whom (along with their driver) were murdered by Trujillo, the horrid dictator of the Dominican Republic.  The novel is a beautiful retelling of the lives of the sisters and their families and how they became involved in revolutionary politics. For a novel that involves imprisonment, beatings, and political assassinations - it is really a tender and beautiful book. Alvarez seems determined to demythologize the heroics of the characters and instead show how human, humane and complicated it is for people to get involved in clandestine, violent political work.  Of course one can't read Alvarez' book and not think of a later novel set in the Trujillo dictatorship, Junot Diaz' 2007 masterpiece - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Both are fantastic books, and offer unique angles on life under dictatorship ( and immigration in the case of Diaz).  I would recommend them both.

If read over a long period, the novel can get a little confusing (which sister is which and is married to who and what year is it?) but still manages to be engaging and moving.  I found reading the last chapter of the book to be a very emotional experience. Alvarez manages to not only tell the story of repression, revolution, and family, but she makes you, the reader, feel like it is your story, your family - and that the loss is your loss, too.