A Decent Woman

Reviews/Quotes

"Deep with delicious detail, scrumptious characters, and full of folklore, this is a unique debut novel from Eleanor Parker Sapia, one that will win her readers over. Buy it, read it, love it." - Jack Remick, short story writer, poet, and award-winning author of Gabriela and the Widow "Race, class, the lingering legacy of slavery, and a woman's role in neoclassical society are all effectively illustrated through the intimate depiction of two insecting lives in A Decent Woman. Author Eleanor Parker Sapia lovingly evokes old Puerto Rico: the graceful colonial city of Ponce, the mixture of African and Catholic traditions, the tropical lushness of the land, and the devastating force of a Caribbean hurricane. Overall, A Decent Woman is a powerful and moving tale; well worth reading." - Alina Garcia Lapuerta, biographer and award-winning author of La Bele Creole: The Cuban Countess Who Captivated Havana, Madrid, and Paris "A Decent Woman takes the reader on an unforgettable journey of friendship between two strong women set against the backdrop of colonial Puerto Rico of the 1900s. A striking first novel from Eleanor Parker Sapia." - Arleen Williams, writer and author of The Alki Trilogy "The writing is so visceral and evocative that you almost feel the rain on your face, the pain of childbirth, fear, betrayal, and redemption along with the women in this story of midwives and mothers." - Claudia H. Long, writer and author of The Duel for Consuelo and Josefina's Sin. "Reading this book was inspiring. I'm sure readers will enjoy A Decent Woman as much as I did." - Sarahn Henderson, Midwife and Educator at Birth in the Tradition "A Decent Woman embodies the genre of women's fiction in the most complete sense of the word exploring the lives of women-young and old, dark-and light-skinned, poor and rich. This is an outstanding read and an important book about a little known corner of women's history." - Yma Johnson, short story writer and journalist || REVIEWS: 8 out of 76 Amazon reviews for A DECENT WOMAN: 1. A Decent Woman is a rich, elegantly written debut novel about two different women struggling to survive in the chauvinistic, male-dominated society of early 1900’s Ponce, Puerto Rico. Ana Belen, a midwife born to African slaves in Cuba, harbors a secret, violent past. Serafina, a beautiful young wife who soon becomes a widow and marries a rich merchant, eventually must, like Ana, keep a vicious incident secret in order to protect herself against the wrath of a prejudiced society. These two women, different in race and class yet bonded by fate, become the best of friends in two diverse worlds. Talented author Eleanor Parker Sapia draws us into their lives, their loves and their struggles as they try to survive in a seemingly unforgiving culture where there’s no real freedom for women, no matter where they come from or what their status is. In this thought-provoking novel, Sapia delves into social criticism and explores women’s issues—all the while balancing her storytelling skills to create an unforgettable tale that sparkles with beautiful prose, rich descriptions, and deep characterization, thus creating two female portraits that will stay with the reader for a long time. Besides the obvious social themes on the dynamics between men and women, Sapia explores the way superstition played a part in the culture of Puerto Rico during that time. The author has clearly done her research in terms of African Yoruba traditions and the way they later mixed with Catholicism. Women friendship as savior is another important theme. In a world where males are viewed as evil, corrupted figures, no matter if they’re doctors, judges, or possess other positions of power, solidarity between women is the one thing that can liberate and even rescue them, if only on an emotional and spiritual level. A Decent Woman is a beautiful work of fiction, and one that I whole-heartedly recommend to readers of historical novels. 2. The only thing that prevented me from reading Eleanor Parker Sepia’s A Decent Woman cover-to-cover in one sitting was that I started it at 11:30 at night. The novel begins in 1899 with an evocative description of Hurricane San Ciriaco which leveled the island of Porto Rico – Parker Sepia uses the old spelling of Puerto Rico. We meet Doña Ana Belen, a midwife working in Ponce after fleeing a troubled past in her native Cuba. This lovable heroine is an important fixture in the lives of local women, and through her eyes we are granted entrée into the intimacies of the birthing chamber with its attendant joys and tragedies, its revelatory moments about a marriage’s true status. The detailed description of medicinal plants, spiritual rites, and turn-of-the-century traditional practices and instruments grounds this novel and will appeal to historical fiction lovers. Above all, A Decent Woman is the story of the evolving friendship between Doña Ana Belén and Serafina, a woman the midwife meets when she delivers Serafina’s first child at sixteen in the poor neighborhood of La Playa. A Decent Woman embodies the genre of women’s fiction in the most complete sense of the word exploring the lives of women - young and old, dark- and light-skinned, poor and rich. Doña Ana finds her livelihood eroded by male-dominated, hospital-based birthing practices and edges toward poverty as Serafina’s marries into an elite family. Dramatic juxtapositions particularly in relation to class dynamics amplify the intensity of each woman’s position and drive the novel forward. A Decent Woman is a feminist commentary on turn of the century health care, Parker Sapia exposes and explores the process by which midwives were displaced by male doctors along with misogynistic and racist attitudes towards impoverished sex workers without being preachy or overbearing. This layered tale also hangs on deeply-seeded tensions between love, friendship, and family versus isolation, loneliness, and despair. Doña Ana, as a devout practitioner of Santeria, finds herself targeted by Catholic priests while she herself is able to seamlessly blend both religions in her spiritual life. Parker Sepia’s prose is generally lucid and simple. She deviates from that style only in relation to her generous landscape descriptions which describe the tumult and unpredictability of the ocean during hurricane season in a manner reminiscent of the Gothic tradition. There are moments when the story feels a bit rushed, and the reader would like to languish longer in the emerging plot points, scenes, and emotional life of the characters. But on the whole, this an outstanding read and an important book about a little known corner of women’s history. 3. I love historical novels, and rarely get a chance to read a well researched book that accurately portrays Puerto Rico and its people, customs and traditions. What a treat this book was! I grew up in Ponce, where most of this story takes place and remember talking to my parents and grandparents about life here during the years the story takes place in and later on, before my time. The story is totally credible, careful attention to historical details brings it to life. There are different layers to the plot, adding depth to the story, that you see evolve as the book progresses. The characters are well developed and multidimensional, showing different aspects of their personality as time goes by, you go through the book with the feeling that you actually know them. The book is unexpectedly rich in the variety of issues it addresses. It is a book about love and friendship, resilience and strength, societal structures that were deeply entrenched, stereotypes and to a degree, social hypocrisy but a warm and poignant picture emerges and involves you, the reader. You are right there with them, furious at the unfairness of some situations, rooting for the main heroines when they succeed, feeling anxious and sad when things seem to go wrong. A very good read, indeed, worth going back to it a couple more times to experience all the layers of the story. Hopefully the author has more stories to tell. 4. Firstly, I must say that I almost never give a 5-star rating. To me a 5-star rating is a story that amazes you or a story you like so much you will read again. This story was so different from any other books I have read. I have read a lot of historical fiction but never one set in Puerto Rico. In fact, all the fiction I have read in my life has been set in the USA or Europe. Eleanor Parker Sapia’s style of writing flows easily and she is descriptive in all the right places (in my opinion, some authors can be overly descriptive). I really like the way she peppers the book with Spanish words and phrases; it makes the story more authentic. I am not going to summarize the story as so many have done before me, but I will make a few points. The author writes about social injustice, oppression of women, corruption, and racial inequality, but not in a heavy handed way. These subjects are naturally incorporated into the storyline, as she writes what it was really like for the less fortunate in Ponce and La Playa. Like in real life, her characters experience very bad and tragic things but it is not all doom and gloom; some of the characters find contentment. 5. A Decent Woman is historical, folkloric, transformative book. The storyline is clever and smart, simply put a fabulous story. Where there is suffering, poverty and hardship with beautiful writing the book sheds light and hope. The writing is indeed so beautiful that I found myself re-reading some sentences because they impacted me so. In the face of suffering friends support each other in a most loving way. The book addresses hard subjects and I fact checked, this is an impressively researched piece, weaving in the historical data makes the story real and palpable. I found particularly interesting how clever the wide variety of characters who ranged in such a wide spectrum of the socio-economic strata developed; Complex characters full of depth that allowed for the story to surprise me as a reader. The folklore both from the Caribbean and Africa was fascinating. I felt it gave added depth to the characters, especially Ana. The secrets of her past unravel in a clever way; this book is well written, clever and as with fantastic fiction very believable. I have only visited Puerto Rico once years ago, this book made me long to make the next visit soon targeting history and folklore. 6. A Decent Woman written by author Eleanor Parker Sapia could very well be a true story about a woman’s right to freedom and independence. This historical fiction takes place in Ponce, Puerto Rico in the early 1900’s. The author does an excellent job of depicting one woman’s story as a midwife during a time when feminine tradition and power was usurped in the name of supposed proper administration of male governed Medicine. Within this context, Ms. Parker Sapia focuses on challenging topics such as domestic violence, prostitution, classism, and religion. She also touches on the complex intricacies of relationships between women who may not always have each other’s best interests in mind due to misperceptions created by male dominance and the effect it has on women’s sense of survival. The author has the strong ability to weave a realistic tale using colorful and vivid description and relatable characters. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and am sure readers who are fans of historical novels will certainly be thrilled to read A Decent Woman. 7. In addition to being deeply moved by this book, I also learned a lot about the history and culture of Puerto Rico in the early 1900s. The characters are beautifully flawed and relatable. While there was tragedy and loss that brought me to tears, there was also so much hope and true love infused into all the rich stories the author tells. I can't imagine the depth of research required to write a book like this, and I'm amazed by how thoroughly I was drawn into the time period and the lives of Ana and Serafina. I came to love them both and wanted them to be happy and find the happiness they sought, though in very different ways and circumstances. There were powerful and important messages about social justice, racial inequality, the oppression of women, and the corruption of many powerful people who will destroy others in their attempts to fulfill their own desires. Yet, the strength and loyalty of all the women in the book, over many years, was inspiring and uplifting. The writing was so stunning that I devoured this book and found myself revisiting the many parts that were more like gorgeous poetry than prose. I am now a big fan of Eleanor Parker Sapia and cannot wait to read more of her books. 8. In The Age of Insight, Eric Kandel writes about the role of the observer in art: “Not only does the viewer collaborate with the artist in transforming a two dimensional likeness on canvas into a three-dimensional depiction of the visual world, the viewer interprets what he or she sees on the canvas in personal terms, thereby adding meaning to the picture. Riegel called this phenomenon the “beholder’s involvement.” (p. 189)… Kris’s study of ambiguity in visual perception led him to elaborate on Riegel’s insight that the viewer completes a work of art…(p. 191) As a neuroscientist, Kandel focuses on the plastic arts but his discussion brings us to the question of writing and specifically to the question of the “historical novel”. What does historical writing demand from the reader in order to “complete a work of art?” There are three dimensions involved: Time, the writer’s mind, and the reader’s perception. We know that writers filter reality, compress time, squeeze events, introduce ‘fictional’ aspects to such an extent that often the historical novel masquerades as a “quasi-memoir” splicing together documentation from time past with the writer’s art and craft of invention. In other words, how much of an historical novel is history and how much is fiction? And, really, does it matter? And what has Eleanor Parker-Sapia done in A Decent Woman? She’s written a novel whose characters are rooted in their time but with a deep reach into the present. She has brought us characters so well developed that as you read, you do not concern yourself with the historical truth of their lives, but you live in their time, in their midst, in their troubles, in their dreams and values. In the novel, these characters read as true, and that is the goal, I think of the historical novel—to lift the specific, historical moment out of its time and force it into our consciousness in a way that lets us choose to accept the time warp and to live in it with glee. If the writer does not handle it well, this historicity becomes costume drama in which character and story are, in fact, secondary to the historical fact. In A Decent Woman, Ms. Parker-Sapia helps us, the readers, overcome our insulated perspective by giving us a multilayered novel that deals in depth and detail with Man’s cruelty and infidelity to Woman. Ms Parker-Sapia’s novel is set in Puerto Rico at the turn of the twentieth century yet these lines could have been written in any time: …But what of the men who played one woman against the other? The same men—who wrote the laws, enforced the laws, enforced the laws against prostitution and adultery, spoke about the sanctity of marriage and la sagrada familia—were the men who slept with women other than their wives… From the Macro to the Micro, Ms Parker-Sapia zeros in on a cultural affliction that speaks to every 21st Century woman who has ever thought about going to a battered women’s shelter: No matter how much Serafina complained about Roberto, her marriage, and cried over his mistreatment, hurtful words, and temper, she always took him back. This dreadful theme binds A Decent Woman to our time and shows us, as readers, that our foibles have roots in the past. This too, is, I think, the goal of the historical novel—to lift us out of our temporal provincialism and to deliver us to a political reality that understands the terror of domestic abuse. A Decent Woman is not, however, simply a treatise on the war of the sexes. It is a full-blown novel rich with detail of its time, ripe with conflicted characters searching for meaning, and thick with cross-cultural themes. As we slip toward the end of the second decade of the 21st Century, we need to look into the historical mirror to understand that what we take for granted—freedom—is never won easily and can be taken away with the stroke of a pen. In this novel, in the face of a male-dominated and male-defined world, Ms Parker-Sapia shows us how women find the strength to go on and in the end to overcome the limitations a male-dominated culture places on the women. As a writer, I no longer read for entertainment. I know the stories being told will mirror or mask stories that have been told hundreds of times. As a writer, I look at how a novelist pulls it off—what does she do to the material to make it interesting to me—a man—and how does she do it. I am interested in language, in the art of writing, and in the craft and control and in A Decent Woman find the work of a writer who understands and controls the craft of detail without becoming predictable or clichéd as in this: Ana washed her hands, and spread lard on her hands and on Serafina’s inner thighs and outer genital area. With a hand on Serafina’s thigh, Ana introduced her hand under the slip, opened the labia, and passed her fingers into the vagina. Serafina winced. The cervix was soft and dilated. Ana hoped the baby would pass through the birth canal without incident, and wondered if the young mother was mentally prepared to deliver a child. At this age, they hardly ever were. “It won’t be long now,” Ana said, seeing the bloody show on her fingers. The pinging sound of water dripping into the aluminum pots echoed from the main room. Ms Parker-Sapia not only brings us into the visceral world of a midwife, she also surrounds us with detail that comes only from a deep read of historical texts or draws from experience and in either case, the historicity gives way to the novelistic: She shut the door behind her, and her eyes grew accustomed to the dim light from a solitary lit candle inside a rusty, faded blue tin. Pearls of hot wax from the burning candle settled in a small pile near a wood box of white candles. There were several cast iron pots on the wood floor for catching rain water—a common sight in hurricane season. Ana laid her satchel on the floor, and lit the wick in the oil lamp. She counted ten candles, and spotted a stack of folded rags on a chair. Roberto had listened well. When she raised the wick, the silhouettes of a bed, a dresser, and a low table were illumined behind a gauzy curtain. Ana replaced the glass globe of the oil lamp, pulled the curtain aside and found Serafina, sleeping in an iron bed. As a writer, I hear the call to “detail, always the detail, god is in the detail”, but detail for its own sake is writing school bloat. In A Decent Woman there is none of that. It is the precision of the work and the flow of the words that makes this such a satisfying novel. In Puerto Rico, at the time of the novel’s setting, Santeria is a folk religion living side by side with the Christian. Ana, the midwife, lives in both worlds as she prepares a healing procedure: “Lie down. If the sun sets, the healing will not take place,” Ana said, placing the squares upon Serafina’s chest and throat. Ana knocked three times on the wood table to call the orishas to her. “Eleguá, I ask permission to invoke Osaín in the healing of my friend. Please help me, as you help all healers,” Ana whispered, brushing away tears with the back of her hand. Ana then flicked Agua Florída cologne around the house to cool the spirits, and with a gnarled wooden broom, starting at the back of the house, she swept the negative energy out the front door, and down the stairs. Once she was satisfied, she tied a brown felt scapular to the bedpost in honor of El Niño de Atocha, the god Changó’s Christian counterpart. Ana stood at the foot of the bed, waiting for a sign the spirits were with her, and then, Serafina fell asleep. Ana frowned. “There’s something in this house. I can feel it.” With hands on her hips, Ana surveyed the room, wondering what she had missed. Then, it came to her. She lit a candle, and filled two cups with water. She placed one behind the front door to absorb all negative forces, and the other under Serafina’s bed. Ana had performed these rituals in her home and others’ homes many times. Every weapon in Ana’s spiritual arsenal was employed to keep Serafina and the children protected, and then, she said a brief prayer for Roberto. Once Ana was satisfied the house and family were protected, she opened a second window to circulate the air. As the sun began to set, her uneasy feelings returned. For the first time, Ana doubted her healing abilities, and those of her Saints which frightened her. So, is A Decent Woman a woman’s novel, an historical novel, a novel set in another time? Is the term historical novel misleading? If the writing works, and if the story line is pure and true and if the characters in the writing come alive, then there is no need to question the roots of the novel at all. In a sense all fiction is historical if by historical we mean set in a time not the present moment. Any contemporary fiction will be historical in fifty years. That much we know. I would say that A Decent Woman, can be seen as an historical novel, but at a another level, it is a Puerto Rican Cinderella fairy tale. Serafina, one of the protagonists begins the novel married to a merchant sailor. Through much of the novel she struggles with the downside of being a widow, and then she re-marries: Serafina’s knees felt weak as she took her place in the Cathedral. Every dark wood pew of the magnificent Cathedral Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe was filled with wedding guests, with sprays of white flowers at the end of every pew. Prisms of colored light emanated from the tall stained glass windows, and warmed the interior. The scents of flowers and incense were intoxicating. Serafina’s eyes followed the white runner to the large altar, which was ablaze with candles and white floral arrangements, and at the altar stood the Bishop, Antonio, her handsome husband-to-be, his two groomsmen, and her new friends, Laura and Mercedes. Serafina smiled when the baby inside her belly kicked. Finally, she heard her cue, and proceeded down the aisle to her new life with Antonio San Patricio.