The Tree of Red Stars [Paperback]

Tessa Bridal (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 16, 1998

Winner of the Milkweed National Fiction Prize and the Friends of America Writers Award in 1997, this vivid debut, set in Uruguay in the 1960s, charts the toll of political events on a young woman and those close to her, as their democracy is gradually taken over by a military dictatorship.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

YA. Magdalena, a young Uruguayan woman of wealth and position living in Europe, tells her story in a series of flashbacks starting with her childhood in Montevideo. When she and her friends are 15, they hear Che Guevara address a rally at the university, and the direction of their lives is changed forever. After a year of school in the United States, Magdalena returns home and works openly for the USIA, but secretly for the Tupamaro rebel group. Her work leads to deeper involvement with the rebels and eventual arrest and torture by the military. Through the help of a high-ranking friend, she is released, but he is arrested; she leaves South America and spends the next seven years in Europe pleading with human-rights agencies for his cause. The novel is rich in female characterizations. Among them are Magdalena's friend Emilia's mother, who secretly works with the rebel movement to help her country's poor, and Magdalena's mother and three aunts who gather daily to gossip and decry their inferior position in their male-dominated society. The story has a bittersweet ending, but teens will appreciate the reality of it.?Penny Stevens, formerly at Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Like Isabel Allende's House of the Spirits (LJ 4/15/85), Bridal's first novel portrays a young woman's emotional and political awakening in the midst of growing oppression and military rule. Growing up in an affluent suburb, Magda glimpses Uruguay's poverty from a distance and only slowing discovers the turmoil that exists beneath a facade of respectability. Swept up in the Socialist fervor of 1960s Latin America, she falls in love with an army officer, but her radical activities put them both in danger of arrest, torture, and death. Despite some weak characterizations and sermonizing toward the end, the simple, straightforward plot effectively captures the terror of modern despotism as well as the hope necessary to overcome it. Recommended for all libraries.?Ellen Flexman, Indianapolis-Marion Cty. P.L., Ind.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Milkweed Editions (October 16, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1571310231
• ISBN-13: 978-1571310231
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #859,508 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Good subject, flawed writing, December 25, 2002

By A Customer

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This review is from: The Tree of Red Stars (Paperback)

As a Uruguayan citizen, I am happy that someone from my country has attempted to write a novel apparently destined for the American public (it seems to have been originally written in English) concerning the bloody, U.S.-financed and -sponsored military dictatorship that scourged Uruguay from 1973 to 1985. Most of my American friends didn't know, or didn't believe, that the U.S. actively supported antidemocratic and murderous regimes in South America and elsewhere, sending CIA-trained "torture specialists" such as Dan Mitrione to teach their skills to the local military - and it is my belief that people should be made aware of tragedies such as the one Uruguay lived through. For this, I give one star to Tessa Bridal's book.

However, much as I would have liked to, I cannot commend (or recommend) this book, which I find seriously flawed. From the beginning, I found characters to be one-dimensional and hard to relate to - and that includes the main character, Magdalena. No hints are given as to why the scion of a well-to-do, conservative family should join a group of left-wing activists such as the Tupamaros (even though this is a fairly common phenomenon, I think it should have merited at least some attempt at explanation, especially since Magdalena seems to enjoy all the privileges afforded by her class without any qualms). Magdalena's love affair with the improbably-named Marco Aurelio Pereira is similarly stilted and unbelievable, as is the one with the sullen, ill-fated and rapidly forgotten Jaime.

Similarly inverosimile and unlikely is Magdalena's relationship with the beggar Gabriela, whom she befriends. The author somehow manages to depict wealthy Magdalena's idyllic friendship with an indigent woman without questioning the social differences between the two, which is maybe a consequence of the pastoral innocence in which the beautiful and intelligent beggar lives - dire poverty, it seems, but without any of its grimmest accompaniments - Gabriela's sweet, tidy little shack resembles the merry shepherds' dwellings in an Arcadian romance.

There seems to be no purpose in Gabriela's romanticized existence in the novel at all, except as a convenient human face for Dan Mitrione's bloody practices.

Along the way, Bridal manages to accomodate a few mistakes no Uruguayan should make, such as calling the Cerro, a promontory looming across the Bay of Montevideo, "Uruguay's tallest hill" (page 14). Uruguayan land is a softly undulating one, without any mountains, but it has some hilly places, and the highest of these, the Cerro de las Animas, is considerably taller than the Cerro de Montevideo.

Two pages later, Bridal says that the Cerro "was where Montevideo's bichicomes lived". Wrong again. "Bichicome", a word derived from the English "beachcomber", applies to homeless people (usually old and male) who sleep on the streets, not to slum dwellers.

These may seem like minor flaws, but when added to dreamy, artificial writing, and a dreamy, artificial depiction of upper-class living, which seems irredeemably "written from the outside" (i.e., how Bridal thinks upper-class Uruguayans live), the effect can be annoying. It certainly lacks the ring of truth.

I really think Bridal has made an honest effort at depicting these times of repression and horror, but the novel just doesn't come off as convincing or believable. I gave it another star for a certain evocative quality which I liked. And the edition is lovely. But that's about all there is to it.

For good books about life under the Uruguayan dictatorship (and other subjects), try Mauricio Rosencof's "Las cartas que no llegaron" ("The letters that never arrived"), a moving book about a family of Jewish immigrants in Uruguay and their Tupamaro son; Eleuterio Fernandez Huidobro's "Memorias del calabozo" ("Dungeon memoirs"), dealing with his years of illegal imprisonment for being a Tupamaro; and Eduardo Galeano's "El libro de los abrazos" ("The book of embraces"), an original and important book which can be found online in English translation.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read, December 29, 2000

By 

A. Pereira (Uruguay) (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Tree of Red Stars (Hardcover)

This book was wonderfully moving. The author parallels the experiences of a carefree young girl with the evoluton of a nation in turmoil. The description of Uruguay, its' customs and lexicon are givn an A+. They made me laugh, cry and remember my own upbringing.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good portrayal of a very real political reality, March 30, 1999

By 

"berenjena" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Tree of Red Stars (Paperback)

In the book Tree of Red Stars we get a look at Uruguayan society in times of peace and prosperity and how that reality changes and how it affects a young girl who although idealistic she sees that the country she has grown up in has to change. It is a painful realization, but as the changes that are taking place involve more and more people around her, there is no way she can remain ignorant of the corruption and political tirany. An excellent book, with a very strong message valid for many nations as well as Uruguay.