"Meet Me Under the Ceiba" by Silvio Sirias

As a blog host, I now have the fun task of reading books by newly discovered writers, and I consider having read Meet Me Under the Ceiba by Silvio Sirias both an honor and a treat.

If you have been following this online book tour, then you know what this story is all about. But for those of you who are just joining us, here is a quick recap of the story.

"An American professor of Nicaraguan descent spending the summer in his parents’ homeland learns of Adela’s murder and vows to unravel the threads of the mystery. The suspense builds as he patiently interviews the townspeople and extracts their intriguing and often outlandish accounts of Adela’s life and death in this backwater town. It quickly becomes apparent that Adela—a hard-working campesina who never learned to read and write—and Don Roque had one thing in common: the beautiful Ixelia Cruz. The love of Adela’s life, Ixelia was one of Don Roque’s many possessions until Adela lured her away.
The interviews with Adela’s family, neighbors, and former lovers shed light on the circumstances of her death and reveal the lively community left reeling by her brutal murder, including: Adela’s older sister Mariela and her five children, who spent Christmas morning with Adela, excitedly unwrapping the gifts their beloved aunt brought them that fateful day; her neighbor and friend, Lizbeth Hodgson, the beautiful mulata who early in their relationship rejected Adela’s passionate advances; Padre Uriel, who did not welcome Adela to mass because she loved women; Adela’s former lover Gloria, the town’s midwife, who is forever destined to beg her charges to name their newborn daughters Adela.
Through stories and gossip that expose jealousies, scandals, and misfortunes, Sirias lovingly portrays the community of La Curva, Nicaragua, in all its beauty and ugliness. The winner of the Chicano / Latino Literary Prize, this spellbinding novel captures the essence of a world rarely seen in American literature. "

What I liked most about this book was how it reads as both a journal and a story at the same time. Sirias makes you feel like you are a part of the characters' lives and histories, and you feel like you were right there--in the middle of that love triangle, just standing there witnessing the greed, anger, jealousy, and lust. It just pulls you in and devours you completely. I can honestly say that I could not put this book down.

I would now like to take the opportunity to welcome Silvio Sirias today.


Sandra: Welcome! First of all, your story concept reminded me a great deal of "The Salvation of La Purisima" by T.M. Spooner. It was about an anglo who traveled to Mexico and discovers a mysterious death that has plagued a village for so long, and he is the only one who can help heal the town. How did you come up with the idea for "Meet Me Under the Ceiba" and, more importantly, how did you come up with the title?*

Silvio: In February of the year 2000, about six months after my wife and I moved to Nicaragua from North Carolina, the papers in Nicaragua started carrying a news item that centered on the disappearance of a woman, named Aura Rosa Pavón, who lived in the small town of La Curva, in the province of Masaya. As details of the mystery began to filter out—the result of the sister’s desperate search to locate her—I began to surmise that the disappearance had to do with Aura Rosa’s involvement in a love-triangle.

The day her body was discovered, three suspects were apprehended; subsequently they were put on trial, and found guilty. And, Sandra, as the picture became clearer regarding what had taken place, the story became sublimely “novelesque” in my mind. There, right before me, was a writers’s dream: a narrative that contained many of the elements that constitute marvelous fiction—love, lust, greed, exploitation, hope, fear, compassion and, to top these off, homophobia. Although at the time I was committed to completing my first novel, BERNARDO AND THE VIRGIN, I knew that as soon as I had finished this task I’d be moving on to tell Aura Rosa’s story. And eight years later, here we are.

The title was inspired by a phrase in a note that lured Aura Rosa Pavon to her death. In it, someone posing as her former lover wrote: “Meet me under the chilamate.” That note and that phrase stuck to me throughout the research stage and I knew they would figure prominently in the narrative. Now, the chilamate is a tree that grows in abundance in Nicaragua. While it’s a striking tree, I hardly found inspiration in it. The ceiba, on the other hand, has a rich religious lore that goes back centuries, particularly with the Yoruban people of Western Africa and the Mayans of Central America. This lore has been mined by other writers of the Caribbean region, so it was an easy decision to substitute “chilamate” for “ceiba.” And, in the end, my writer’s intuition had been correct as the pivotal scene in the novel revolves around the phrase, hence the title.

Sandra: I see you were named one of the top ten Latino Writers to watch for 2010. How does that make you feel?*

Silvio: As a published novelist yourself, Sandra, you’re well aware of the long, lonely hours—and, in my case, decades—spent trying to master the craft. On top of this, it takes months, if not years, to complete a novel. To be named one of the Top Ten New Latino Writers to Watch (and Read) in 2010 is, to me, one of the most gratifying moments I’ve experience in my career. The honor means that every second I’ve spent suffering to get the right turn of the phrase, to make a scene call out, to try to get the story to grab a reader’s heart has well been worth the sacrifices.

Sandra: Thank you for joining us and good luck with your book!


About the Author:
SILVIO SIRIAS is the author of a novel, Bernardo and the Virgin (Northwestern University Press, 2007), and he has written and edited several books on Latino/a literature, including Julia Alvarez: A Critical Companion (Greenwood Press, 2001) and Conversations with Rudolfo Anaya (University Press of Mississippi, 1998). He received his doctorate in Spanish from the University of Arizona and worked as a professor of Spanish and U.S. Latino/a literature for several years before returning to live in Nicaragua in 1999. He currently lives in Panama.

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Arte Publico Pr (September 30, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-13: 978-1558855922


Link to author's website: http://www.silviosirias.com/

Blog Tour associated with Latino Book Tours

Silvio Sirias Blog Tour Dates:
Monday 11th: Book Lover Carol http://bookluver-carol.blogspot.com/
Tuesday Jan 12th: Brown Girl Speaks www.browngirl.weebly.com/book-speak.html
Wed Jan 13th: Regular Ruminations http://www.regularrumination.wordpress.com/
Thursday Jan 14th: The Tranquilo Traveler http://blog.joshuaberman.net/
Friday Jan 15th: Pisti Totol http://www.pistitotol.wordpress.com/
Monday 18th: Mama XXI http://www.mamaxxi.blogspot.com/
Tuesday 19th: Farm Lane Books http://www.farmlanebooks.co.uk/
Wed 20th: Sandra's Book Club http://sandrasbookclub.blogspot.com/
Thurs. 21st: Latino Books Examiner www.examiner.com/x-6309-Latino-Books-Examiner
Friday 22nd: Una in a Million http://unainamillion.blogspot.com/