I have an issue with the person who wrote the blurb for Ana Castillo’s The Guardians. Actually, I have issue with blurb-writers in general, but this one particularly annoyed me.
The back cover of The Guardians calls the main character Tia Regina, a “sensuous, smart, and fiercely independent” woman. I’ll give them smart. Maybe even sensuous. But, despite her many qualities, Regina never strikes me as a “fiercely independent” woman. True, she lives alone. And I suppose there are times when she acts bravely in the book. But read the first section of the book, narrated from her perspective, and it’s clear she is not “fiercely independent.” She is independent by circumstance; it is not something she fights (or ever fought) for. The blurb summary reads far more like a personal ad and it is just that, in a way – it’s a list of qualities the publisher thinks will appeal to women. It’s a list of things women are supposed to wait to be and in this way the portrayal of the character is supposed to be appealing to the target female audience (and this, as with so many others books by female authors, is clearly targeted to a female audience).
I suppose this is fine as a marketing tool, but as a literature lover it just irks me. Because in fact Regina is a wonderful, very well-realized character and everything that makes her a wonderful character is something that contradicts that blurb description. She values family, years for them, she is frightened at times, and confused at times, and often feels plain and old and dumb. She is supremely human and recognizable in this way; I can’t ask any more of a character. Reducing her to personal-ad triteness demeans the quality of Regina’s voice and the character the author has created. But so it goes. Anytime a novel contains a character so real that I can take offense at some external portrayal then it’s a good thing – clearly the author has done her job.
Well, nearly all her job. In fact, the novel contains three other narrators are none of them are as convincing or as enjoyable to read as Regina. None of them are bad – her nephew Gabo is a bit of a caricature and not enough of an authentic 16-year-old boy and Miguel is pretty flat – it was just always disappointing to end a Regina section and start someone else’s. I enjoyed being in her head much more.
It’s telling, too, that I’m into my fifth paragraph and only now mentioning the fact that this could easily have been a very political kind of novel. The action takes place in the far south of New Mexico near the border and concerns the search for Gabo’s father who may have been lost in the desert attempting to (illegally) cross into the U.S. Not many issues are as politically hot today (and especially in Phoenix, where I live) as immigration. And yet here’s a book about immigration that doesn’t for a moment address it as an issue. And that’s perfect because from the first moment we’re aware that to these people it is not an issue, not a political concern at all. It’s life, it’s reality.
In the end, the book is about family. A lot of great novels do this – they sell you on the idea that they’re about some new, exciting issue, but then turn out to be very sentimental, very traditional at heart. The Guardians isn’t the kind of book I would normally read – it came to me as part of an early reviewer program – but I related to it strongly. It’s the sort of book that starts slowly, lets you get to know its characters, and then comes at you in a rush. I liked it and would recommend it absolutely.
