By Gloria DeLaTorre-Wycoff
Publisher: DeLaTorre Publishing
The book begins with the story of Ms. DeLaTorre-Wycoff’s mother who is born in 1906 and shortly the family becomes separated due to life circumstances. Maria, the author’s mother, is sent to live with her aunt – her father’s sister Adalberta. The Aunt is strict, but Maria is brought up in an upper middle class environment and learns to survive.
At the age of 18, Maria makes her way to the United States to be reunited with her mother and siblings. Upon arriving, it is not at all what Maria is expecting – especially the living conditions.
Nonetheless, she settles in to her new surroundings and eventually begins a love affair with her sister’s husband only to become pregnant. This will change her life forever. She is ostracized by relatives and used by the brother-in-law for sex for most of her life. It is a story that will bring forth emotions of sadness, anger, and compassion and at different times throughout the memoir makes you wonder how a woman can continue to love a man who treats her with such disregard.
I believe that the author wrote her mother’s story to give acceptance to the wonderful person that her mom was in spite of all the misgivings in her life – this was accomplished. The light that was shone on the brother-in-law, the author’s father, was not favorable and rightly so. Whether the author meant to show this or not, I wasn’t sure; however, in the end I believe that the father got off easy. What was missing is the author’s feelings towards her father; although, on occasion there are snippets.
The memoir is heart wrenching for sure. If I could give one small criticism it is that the story was done in a telling fashion rather than showing the reader. This would have made it that much more powerful. Unfortunately, there was little dialog or scenes throughout the book which I found could have made the book even more fascinating. The book, overall, was very easy to read and the flow of the story was executed nicely.
So how did the book affect me? I would say that my heart poured out for Maria, but I have to say that it made me very angry towards the man who seduced and changed this young woman’s life with little repercussions. Sad indeed!
Overall, the author wrote a heartfelt memoir and I can only see how difficult it must have been to revisit the life of her mother and put it down into words. My hat goes off to Ms. DeLaTorre-Wycoff. Definitely a book to read, but get ready to go through an emotional seesaw ride!
Source: Book was provided by author for review. It was reviewed by Corina Martinez Chaudhry.
