The Good Works of Ayela Linde: A Novel in Stories

by Charlotte Forbes

Book Overview

In 16 interconnected stories, the reader is presented with a 360-degree view of the enigmatic Ayela Garzon Linde. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1559708077
• ISBN13: 9781559708074
• Release Date: May 2006
• Publisher: Arcade Publishing
• Length: 227 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Charlotte Forbes is clearly a very talented writer and each piece of The Good Works of Ayela Linde i

O.Henry Award winner, Charlotte Forbes, has put together a brilliant collection of sixteen stories focusing on the life of Ayela Linde, the illegitimate daughter of a Mexican dressmaker, Felidia Garzon. All of the stories are arranged chronologically from the time Ayela is seventeen until the day she dies. Although they are all inter-linked, they nevertheless stand by themselves as distinct sketches of Ayela as depicted from the different perspectives of family, friends and acquaintances whose lives she touched. The format Forbes has adopted curtails excess verbiage or pedantry and demonstrates the breadth and depth of her superlative writing abilities. It is also an attestation that it is not so much the story that is important but rather the way it is told. We never quite figure out Ayela however we do glean from the bits and pieces of the various narrators a touching insight into the many facets of her personality and temperament. When we first meet Ayela at age seventeen, we learn from her friend Druanne that she lived with her religious mother and superstitious grandmother in the backwater colonial town of Santa Rosalia, north of the Rio Grande. It appears that her grandmother loved her more than her own mother, with whom she was constantly embroiled in a contentious relationship that according to Ayela began "the day she dropped from her mother's womb, a howling prune of a baby, ravenous for milk that had not begun to flow and sucking a dry breast with a sense that her mother held nothing she needed." Her singular beauty was undeniable and attracted all the men wherever she went including her future husband, a young sophisticated Boston lawyer, Frederick Linde, who first laid eyes on her when she was eighteen. Immediately smitten and overwhelmed by her exquisiteness and air of mystery he followed her around and insisted that they elope. The reaction of some who knew Ayela, however, was that they thought of "Frederick as a hunting dog, as they shook their heads sadly at his misplaced ardor." Many perceived Ayela as aloof, insensitive, self-absorbed and obstinate and even her own three children did not get along with her. In particular, the eldest, Xavier, was completely shattered when she didn't even read his poem at the opening of the town's Art Pavilion- a poem he believed to be "great, vivid, and intelligent about the only woman in the world for him." On the other hand, she did have feelings for the sick and poor and was not impressed with someone's wealth or position in society-emphatically stating that she would never use her husband's wealth or position for her own self-gain. Hortensia Drenk, one of Ayela's friends recounts how she rarely worshipped in the town's parish preferring to drive to a tumble-down church in Oderada in order to sit in the back pews with the Mexican day laborers, as she preferred the company of the poor in church. No doubt, some were envious, as they whined that she had risen into the town's hi

Beautiful

I loved this book- rich with imagery and language and interesting characters, it flowed through the lives of people I came to care about. I was reminded throughout of the captivating, earthy characters I met in the works of Erdrich and Marquez. I slowed my reading toward the end, not wanting it to be over, but found the last words moved me, leaving me feeling satisfied and expanded.

Good work mommy!

I am so happy for my mom!! I think she did a splendid job. I really liked the way she described Ayela with such detail;from the wild girl in "Parasols" to the wise old widow in "The Marvolous Yellow Cage". This is truly wonderful work of fiction! Hands down!!

Forbes' novel works

Charlotte Forbes' debut novel enthralls with quaint metaphor, showing that cows and coffee are much more than food and drink, sharing puzzle pieces of the beautiful Ayela Linde through the stories of a medley of characters, including grandchildren and teenage accomplices in debauchery. Hiding in the nooks of this novel, clothed in Forbes' mesmerizing fabric of words, revealing itself inelucatably, is the pungent truth that life is what you make of it. Forbes leaves her readers desperately wondering about the siestas between stories, and sneaking looks at the inside of the cover in hopes to get a glimpse of the face that launched these wonderful words.

The Good Works of Ayela Linde

What a lovely, elegant, powerful book! -so beautifully written that reading it is effortless and absorbing. You feel as if youre right there with Ayela living a life along side hers. A beautiful book which I think will become a classic.