Customer Reviews

The Ladies' Gallery: A Memoir of Family Secrets

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It wasn't until I was a few pages into the first chapter, when I realized that this is Vilar's book entitled "A Messsage from God in the Atomic Age", with a new title. Now, I have both of her books, or rather, 2 of the same books. This seems rather curious to me.

Startling, this is a visionary memoir of Puerto Rico's political, social and cultural wars for its identity told by the heir to one of the most important heroine and political leader in Latin America in this his century. Vilar is an unmistakable talent and this book an extraordinary and unusual example of how memoir as therapy becomes memoir as art. The word depression will not mean the same to you after you read this book.

This is a beautifully written memoir by the grand-daughter of Puerto Rican nationalist Lolita Lebron. Alternating chapters, Vilar presents her family history as well as her personal memoirs from inside of a mental hospital. This is not necessarily meant to be a political project. Nonetheless, it effectively captures the the emotion and experience of a woman who has inherited a heavy political legacy.

The potential for this book was tremendous. The author is the daughter of Lolita Lebron, the Puertorican independentist imprisoned for, along with a group of men, storming Congress and riddling it with bullets.

Instead of telling us what it was like growing up in a *revolutionary* atmosphere, during the short spurts of time spent with her mother - or offering some insight into who her mother was and how she became what she became, instead Irene Vilar obsesses on a tenuous thread of mental illness and wastes an opportunity to tell a great story.

There remains a great story to be told.