The Years With Laura Diaz
   Carlos Fuentes
  1999 Farrar, Straus & Giroux, NY
   ISBN: 0374293414


Through the voice & life of Laura Diaz, a woman in the artist, Diego Rivera's mural, this sweeping epic starts in industrial Detroit; lives through the Mexico of the Revolution; the Spanish Civil War & that black period of United States history known as the McCarthy era to end a century later in Los Angles with the voice of her great-grandson.

Just as great murals tell the history & stories of a people, so this magnificently written work shows us the rich colors & contrasts that create our world. Laura Diaz is an intelligent & passionate heroine. She lived her life fully & despite her many losses & tragedies, she was a happy woman; able to make a positive difference in her life, the lives of her family & friends, & to help create the history of her country.

I loved The Years With Laura Diaz because it was as though I knew her, & lived along side her as I met all the interesting people that were part of her life, part of the turbulent last century of Mexican history & culture. I have spent many a thankful winter in Mexico & the sights & smells came alive for me again.

I am there in the beginning at the coffee plantation of her grandfather in Catemaco. With Laura Diaz when her mother & she move to Veracruz; when she visits Detroit & Paris. When she discovers in Mexico City; Tlaleloloc; Cuernavaca & the Zona Rosa. I meet the great mural painter of Mexico, Diego Rivera, & his passionate & colorful wife Frida Kahlo. I meet the intellectuals & ex-patriots of the Spanish Civil War & the Hollywood exiles now residing in central Mexico - the directors & actors blacklisted as communists by their friends & enemies.

This is a novel of great depth. This is work written by a man who has lived his life observing, thinking, asking questions, considering & writing. His great talent lies in speaking for many; for daughters, fathers, mothers, sons, lovers, passionate revolutionaries - each character comes to life. He is such a master that he is able to speak to us through the voice of a woman, her aunts, mother & grandmothers. Carlos Fuentes paints a vision of a great culture & people; he creates reality with imagination, he is a great voice in world literature today.

More from Carlos Fuentes: Aura; Constancia and Other Stories for Virgins; Terra Nostra; The Campaign; The Old Gringo; Where the Air is Clear; The Death of Artemio Cruz; The Good Conscience; Burnt Water; The Hydra Head; A Change of Skin; Christopher Unborn; Diana: The Goddess Who Hunts Alone; & also reviewed The Orange Tree; Myself with Others; The Buried Mirror & A New Time for Mexico.
(02/25/01)

Deborah
A RebeccasReads.com Reviewer

Reviewer's Bio:
Deborah Daubner Michel has a BA in Biology & English & wrote for the University newspaper. Her first job was teaching Physics & English at a high school in southern Michigan. When she moved to Washington State, she became active in environmental education, attaining the Executive Director chair of Wild Olympic Salmon. She has also taught classes about salmon, their habitat & restoration. Currently she is writing Biological Assessments required by the US Army Corps of Engineers for construction of marine projects in the Puget Sound. Deborah so loves reading that she'd prefer to spend money on books before food & clothes.