Andrew Foster Altschul

The Gringa is a fascinating story about Leonora Gelb, accused of being a terrorist in Lima, Peru. Her Jewishness is rarely covered but it gives an underlying gravitas to her life. Her family was considered lapsed Jews. Although when American rabbis sent a delegation to Lima in 2000, there was some question about the Gelb’s rediscovery of Judaism. Rabbi Eisen, head of the conservative Sociedad de Imanuel in Miraflores, visited Leonora when she was in solitary confinement. When the rabbi was asked if Leonora Jewish concern for social justice influenced her violent action. He laughed and said there is a fine line between changing the world and violence.
There is a passage of the book where Rabbi Eisen is first approached by Leonora after Shabbat services. Her description and his reaction are heartbreaking. It was his thirtieth anniversary with his wife and were celebrating by seeing Rigoletto. His empathy was so strong that he considered giving Leonora his ticket.
Rabbi Eisen and the Jewish congregation is connecting thread through the book. Towards the later section Leonora attends service and observes how the mainly Spanish congregation don’t understand Hebrew. They are faking it, playing their part. The realization brings an unexpected surge of binding. Incomprehension is makes her belong to them.
She privately talks to the rabbi about how she is fighting to feed the people of Lima that are oppressed by the government. She asks isn’t God supposed to help them? The rabbi responds with do you think you can take His Place?
The clever conceit of the book is how the author flips between the research about Leo and his personnel life and then tells the Leo story. It’s a hybrid of fiction and non-fiction.

Magnificent writing and propulsive moving ending
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Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book that I got through Amazon Vine to review.

Story (2/5): I decided to set this aside about 100 pages in. It was kind of interesting but I didn't really enjoy the style in which it was written. The chapters go randomly between the author explaining the history and events of the time, and the story of Leonora Gelb. At one point the author even makes fun of himself saying that his publisher said people aren't interested in the history but want to hear Leonora's story....sorry to say but the publishers have a point. I actually do want to learn the history but I would also like a cohesive story as well.

Characters (3/5): Leonora is fictional character, so this is another one of those weird fictional accounts where a person is made to seem real but isn't. Leonora's story is based very loosely on the real revolutionary Lori Berenson. I always struggle to engage with an account like this...that is made to seem so historical accurate but is still fiction. There were a few other characters surrounding Leonora that were prominent but they weren’t well characterized and it was hard to engage with them because of how the story bounced around. Leonora seems like an interesting character but she’s always held at a distance so it’s hard to really get in her head.

Setting (4/5): The story is set in 1998 in the slums of Lima, Peru. It’s an interesting setting and I enjoyed learning more about that time and what the people were going through.

Writing Style (2/5): This could have been much better formatted with maybe the history parts being their own chapters, footnotes, or maybe separate parts at the beginning of the chapter. With the way the reader is whipped between the history and Leonora's story this is a struggle to follow and you are constantly trying to figure out what is general history and what is Leonora's story. To be blunt this was hard to read.

My Summary (2/5): Overall I thought this was a bit of a mess (with the way the reader constantly has to struggle to figure out what is history of the time and what parts are Leonara’s story). I would constantly find myself thinking, “Oh, now I must be reading about Leonora again...no wait, I think we are still talking about the general history of the time.” I eventually got so frustrated I put it aside, this is not a time in my life when I need extra frustration. To be fair this was also a bit heavier of a read than I was expecting and I am not in a great mental frame to be concentrating on something so heavy given all the world events occuring. In the end I guess I might recommend this if you are interested in this time in history.… (más)