Saving the World (Shannon Ravenel Books (Paperback))

By Julia Alvarez

Book Overview

Latina novelist Alma Huebner is suffering from writer's block and is years past the completion date for yet another of her bestselling family sagas. Her husband, Richard, works for a humanitarian organization dedicated to the health and prosperity of developing countries and wants her help on an extended AIDS assignment in the Dominican Republic. But Alma begs off joining him: the publisher is breathing down her neck. She promises to work hard and follow him a bit later. The truth is that Alma is seriously sidetracked by a story she has stumbled across. It's the story of a much earlier medical do-gooder, Spaniard Francisco Xavier Balmis, who in 1803 undertook to vaccinate the populations of Spain's American colonies against smallpox. To do this, he required live "carriers" of the vaccine. Of greater interest to Alma is Isabel Sendales y G mez, director of La Casa de Exp sitos, who was asked to select twenty-two orphan boys to be the vaccine carriers. She agreed-- with the stipulation that she would accompany the boys on the proposed two-year voyage. Her strength and courage inspire Alma, who finds herself becoming obsessed with the details of Isabel's adventures. This resplendent novel-within-a-novel spins the disparate tales of two remarkable women, both of whom are swept along by machismo. In depicting their confrontation of the great scourges of their respective eras, Alvarez exposes the conflict between altruism and ambition. Julia Alvarez's new novel, Afterlife, is available now. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1565125584
• ISBN13: 9781565125582
• Release Date: April 2007
• Publisher: A Shannon Ravenel Book
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 0.96 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 1.1" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

Wonderfully Entertaining

I loved this book. I thought the alternating chapters between the centuries worked well. I found both stories equally riveting. I would say however, that I did not feel that the stories were really connected. Before I read the book, the reviews seemed to indicate that both women were involved in ridding the world of disease, one of small pox and the other of AIDS. I would classify it more as a modern writer who becomes...

Saving the World

I absolutely love this book. I am half way through and I can't get enough of it! I would recommend this book to anyone. I am a fan of Julia Alvarez and have had the opportunity to hear her speak. When she spoke of this book and the research she did in order to write the book, I was intrigued and had to buy it. Wonderful book that intertwines two stories of strong and amazing women who are struggling in their life experiences...

200 Years That Bind

While I browsed through a bookstore, the subject of this novel caught my attention: the story of a Spanish doctor in the 1800's who sets out on an expedition to bring the smallpox vaccine to the Spanish colonies around the world. Having discovered that the virus from which the vaccine is to be made must be transported live and cultured sequentially, he solicits young boys from an orphanage to be his first line of carriers...

Author of Returnable Girl

I LOVED this book. Mostly because it is historical fiction interwoven with a present-day tragedy. The relationships felt very real to me, and stories that speak about grief, loss and the power to move through these experiences and heal from them. Bravo Julia! Well done.

Tempest-tossed on land and sea

Julia Alvarez' new novel was a Book Sense pick of the month. I've never been quite satisfied by her earier books, but after dedicating five months to the Spanish-language telenovela "Alborada", I was in the mood for something at least partially set in the same early 19th century time period. I gave "Saving the World" a try. What a fabulous surprise. "Saving the World" is not without flaws, but it is a marvelous read, completely...