Product Description

ABOUTBOOK: In 1932 El Salvador, Elena de Contreras and her husband Ernesto live the luxurious life of the very wealthy: regular trips to Europe and the United States, vast amounts of property, several gorgeous homes. In sharp contrast to their privileged existence, however, are the lives of the coffee workers they employ, who know only the hardships of back-breaking labor and low wages. Mercedes Prieto, a Pipil Indian, comes from such a background. After losing her son and husband in the aftermath of a violent uprising against rich plantation owners, she flees with her daughter Jacinta to work in the household of Elena de Contreras. Their arrival sets in motion a spellbinding story that takes three generations to unfold, as the two families become inexorably intertwined and their private turmoil mirrors the upheaval of the world around them. Rich in history, tradition, color, and drama, Bitter Grounds is at once poetic and unsentimental, a page-turning saga that satisfies and entertains to the very last drop. DISCUSSIONQUES: Q do the generations change, in their attitudes, beliefs, aspirations? Consider the world events surrounding these characters during the span of the novel, from 1932 to 1977: How are outside forces (economic depression, war, worker rebellion, civil unrest) reflected in their daily lives? Q is the significance of "Los Dos," the daily radio soap opera-both its content and the rituals of its audience? Q provides a way of life in El Salvador. What is its role in the lives of these characters, symbolically and literally? Q are elements of magic realism to this story. Discuss examples of magic realism and their role in the story: do you think the departure from reality adds to or detracts from your belief in these events? Why do you think the author chose to include them? Other writers (Laura Esquivel, Isabel Allende, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, to name a few) have also used this effect; if you've read their work, compare it to Bitter Grounds, or discuss if or why Latin American writing lends itself to magic realism. Do any North American writers try their hands at it? Q (page 130) Discuss other characters whose lives take equally dramatic and irreversible turns. Q Grounds depicts the sharp differences between the lives of the rich and the poor. But the two classes also shared much in common. In what ways were they alike? Q the poor turned to the left for help politically, the rich turned to the right, and this polarization eventually led to a tragic civil war. Who do you think is to blame for the failure to find a middle ground? Q writing about women are sometimes accused of doing so at the expense of their male characters. Discuss the role of men in this novel and how you feel they are portrayed. Q did you find interesting about mother/daughter relationships in Latin America? And how do these differ, if at all, from the way things work in our country? Q the final analysis, who were the winners and who were the losers in Bitter Grounds? AUTHORBIO: Sandra Benitez was born in Washington, D.C., and spent her childhood and early adulthood in Mexico and El Salvador. She then moved to the United States and received an undergraduate degree and a master's degree from Northeast Missouri State University. She published her first novel, A Place Where the Sea Remembers, when she was 52. She lives with her husband in Edina, Minnesota.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #384672 in Books
• Published on: 1998-08-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 464 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780312195410
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
Bitter Grounds, Sandra Benitez's American Book Award-winning novel, chronicles the lives of three generations of women in war-torn El Salvador. After losing most of their family during the massacres of 1932, Mercedes Prietas and her daughter Jacinta go to work for Elena de Contreras and her family, who own enormous coffee and cotton plantations. During the next 40 years, the women of both families help each other endure the many hardships that come their way. Benitez manages to portray both the poor and the rich women in this book as complex, sympathetic characters. Like the heroines of Los dos, their favorite radio soap opera, the women in this novel suffer heartache, unrequited love, betrayal, and the loss of loved ones. One by one, all of Jacinta's family members are killed amid the country's political turmoil. Elena's heart breaks when she discovers her best friend in bed with her husband on the eve of their daughter's marriage. The Contreras family struggles to retain control of its land during the late 1970s government-mandated redistribution of wealth. Through it all, the women sustain each other, even after circumstances separate them: "Sometimes, late at night or, most often, very early in the morning, when Jacinta lay in her cot in the little room she shared with Rosalba, her mother stirred within her. This was not craziness, but a consolation. To feel her mother's flesh, her bulk, shored up along the banks of her own bones and flesh." Bitter Grounds is a thoughtful, vivid account of the lives of some very resilient women.

From Library Journal
Centering on a letter that remains unopened for 26 years, Benitez's impressive saga follows the intertwined lives of three generations of Salvadoran women, the very rich and the very poor, friends and mothers and daughters, mistresses and servants?and, finally, oppressors and victims and guerrillas. Their lives are played out against the backdrop of the ever-present radio soap-opera serial and the violence and corruption of the police state and civil war of 20th-century El Salvador. Benitez's prose is rich and fluid; one tastes and smells the world of Jacinta and Magda and their mothers and daughters. Like her first novel (A Place Where the Sea Remembers, LJ 9/1/93), this work is another welcome addition to the growing body of Latina literature.?Mary Margaret Benson, Linfield Coll. Lib., McMinnville, Ore.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
A luminously rendered second novel from the author of A Place Where the Sea Remembers (1993). Here, memorable pairs of mothers and daughters, caught up in the violence of recent Salvadoran history, live, love, and die for their passions. Ben¡tez excels at capturing the textures of landscape, of class and period, and tells here a multigenerational saga shaped by politics but refreshingly free of polemic. Her upper-class characters are as fairly delineated as her peasants, as she tells the story of three generations of mothers and daughters whose lives intersect. She begins with the infamous massacre of 1932, when Indian peasants suspected of being communists were slaughtered in the countryside. Thirteen-year-old Jacinta and her mother, Mercedes Prieto, are the only survivors of the attack in which their home is burned and Mercedes's husband killed. The two struggle to survive. When Mercedes begins working for wealthy landowners Elena and Ernesto de Contreras, however, life improves. Elena, a more enlightened product of her class and times, has her own sadness: On the eve of daughter Magda's wedding, she discovers Cecilia, her best friend, in bed with Ernesto. Hurt and angry, she vows never to see Cecilia again, which of course has repercussions in a story that suffers from foreshadowing. As the country experiences coups and falling coffee prices, the women try to live normal lives but find it impossible. Jacinta's first love is killed for being a union supporter; Alma, her daughter by a married man, becomes a revolutionary and dies in a botched kidnapping; and Magda, who employs Jacinta and raises daughter Flor, along with Alma, loses her husband and son-in-law in the same kidnapping. Exile in Miami with a hint of a happy ending as the war heats up in the late '70s is the only option for Jacinta, Magda, and her family. A sometimes schematic but always vivid chronicle of strong women facing the challenges of living in sad and violent times. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

An end with a bang
This is the first book I have read by Sandra Benitez. I have done much research on the the 1932 matanza in El Salvador and some on the civil war. I am Salvadoran and began reading the book critically and from a historical point of view. It began quite slow for me and somewhat sided, but as I read on I began to feel as I knew the characters and their realities. This is an excellent book. The realities of life, love, family, death, and war are presented strongly and passionately. The ending is gripping and seems unlikely, but definately portrays the difficult times of the civil war. Read it, it will provide a fictional story of the lives of some in a war torn country.

Violent but compelling
My bookclub decided to read this book as a follow-up to the non-fiction From Grandmothers to Granddaughters by Michael Gorkin that follows 3 generations of Salvadoran women through the civil war and into the 90's. This book was an excellent fictional follow-on. It follows the paths of 3 generations of one lower class family and one upper class family through the turbulent 20th Century in El Salvador. Benitez does not hesitate to share the gory details of Salvador's turbulent history from 1933-1977.

I found the book very easy to become engrossed in, despite my dislike of violence and blood-drenched descriptions. Her descriptions of life in El Salvador are true to life in every detail. I live in San Salvador and found myself searching for "Tresores" or the carjacking spot on the road to La Libertad in Santa Tecla.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in what it is like to live in this country, what the Salvadoran people have experienced, or who just wants a beautiful, albeit sad, story of human survival in adversity.

A wonderful journey and well worth the read!
As a big fan of Sandra Benitez's A Place Where the Sea Remembers I eagerly looked forward to reading Bitter Grounds. What I found was a very different book although equally as satisfying and enlightening. As in A Place Where the Sea Remembers Sandra's intoxicating lyrical style leaves an indelible mark on you as you read Bitter Grounds. But in this story I felt myself being pulled much deeper into the lives of the families whose existence is inextricably connected to El Salvador's politics and coffee trade. Moving quickly, the story covers many miles, tragedies and celebrations and suddenly you're at the end-not quite ready to leave, and never able to forget the rich stories within the story. A wonderful journey and well worth the read!