Gun Dealers' Daughter: A Novel: A Novel

by Gina Apostol

Overview

Winner of the PEN/Open Book Award

At university in Manila, young, bookish Soledad Soliman falls in with radical friends, defying her wealthy parents and their society crowd. Drawn in by two romantic young rebels, Sol initiates a conspiracy that quickly spirals out of control. Years later, far from her homeland, Sol reconstructs her fractured memories, writing a confession she hopes will be her salvation. Illuminating the dramatic history of the Marcos-era Philippines, this story of youthful passion is a tour de force.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393083996
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	07/02/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	400 KB

About the Author

Gina Apostol won the Philippine National Book Award for her first two novels, Bibliolepsy and The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata. She lives in New York City and western Massachusetts.

What People are Saying About This

Han Ong

There is Didion in the female protagonist with the fractured consciousness and there is Naipaul in the sharp portrait of a third world where revolution battles privilege, but Ms. Apostol performs her own unique alchemy: she fuses poetic language with a thriller story to create a mesmerizing slow-burn of a book.

Editorial Reviews

Philippine National Book Award–winner Apostol chronicles a country in political turmoil in her vertiginous American debut. Soledad Soliman lives in a Philippines under martial law and rife with violent opposition groups, but her life exists in a “gilded womb.” When she enters university in Manila, she encounters the poverty and political unrest of her country and soon falls for the charismatic Maoist Jed, realizing that “o enter the gates of country,” she must “give up suite of custom-designed rooms and march.” As she becomes more involved with the movement, she confronts the sordid source of her family’s great wealth and begins to learn Philippine history from the perspective of her own people, deftly revealing the problematic relationship between the U.S. and the Philippines. Poetically told through the shattered prism of Sol’s memory (which reflects the revisionist history of her country and calls into question the very nature of truth and narrative), the reason for her madness comes to light as she recounts her own, and her country’s, rebellious and tragic past. Apostol (Bibliolepsy) offers an intriguing and significant view of Marcos-era Philippines in this complex and feverish novel. (July)

Publishers Weekly

Probes the hard truths of love, nationhood, and exile…Apostol is a fearless, stylish writer of substance.

Jessica Hagedorn

[J]ust what literature needed. Fresh, funny, irreverent, it won me over immediately.

Gary Shteyngart

[A] mesmerizing slow-burn of a book.

Han Ong

In her brilliant new novel…Gina Apostol creates one of the most compelling characters in recent fiction….Soledad herself pieces the story together for us—of how bad turned to worse—and whatever one makes of it finally, she holds our attention to the last word with what is almost, yes, a writer’s sensibility and style....Apostol has given us a tour de force tale about late 20th century Manila, but Gun Dealers’ Daughter is also a book for our times.”

Brian Collins - LA Review of Books

A stunning and lyrical word-portrait of a 'martial-law baby' whose story of teenage romance and rebellion allows Apostol to braid together a wider set of issues: memory, history, language, nationalism, exile, and revolution.

Paul Nadal - Public Books

A daring, fever dream of a novel. Gina Apostol’s writing is a substance we couldn’t once get here. Savor it, reader, now that you can.

Alex Gilvarry

[B]rilliant…Apostol creates one of the most compelling characters in recent fiction.

Brian Collins - Los Angeles Review of Books

Apostol, winner of the Philippine National Book Award, follows her previous novels, Bibliolepsy and The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata, with this cultural coming-of-age story. Soledad Soliman, having experienced the highs and lows of life, transforms herself from a bookish, affluent girl to a Communist rebel, fighting with her dedication to the movement and the man she loves. The book is her confession; rich with emotion, reflection, and fervor, the story takes on the added element of revealing the struggles of Filipinos and women. While the narrative is strong, Apostol's writing style—simple, poetic, and captivating at every point of Soledad's journey—is the real draw: "And yet it was soothing…. A lulling, desperate state, but comforting, the way the extreme inactivity forced on us by illness has a morbid, feculent pleasure…there's that sensual garb, this state of malaise." VERDICT Reminiscent of Toni Morrison's Paradise and Melissa P.'s The Scent of Your Breath, this book will appeal to readers of literary fiction.—Ashanti L. White, Fayetteville, NC

Library Journal

The stilted reminiscences of a daughter of privilege from the Philippines whose naïve acts of rebellion teach her a tough life lesson. In her third novel, award-winning, Manila-born Apostol delivers a sketchy history of her country's politics from the solipsistic perspective of a "spoiled brat," Soledad Soliman, now recovering from a mental breakdown in her family's luxurious New York mansion. The child of arms dealers, Sol spent the 1970s in the U.S., avoiding the violence at home. Returning to Manila, to a life lived among the elite, she had plans for a foreign education, but illness intervened and instead she attended a local college where she met a political crowd including another Soledad (this one a Maoist) and her wealthy boyfriend Jed. Sol's attraction to Jed leads to an affair conducted during evening graffiti raids, but her wish to join the political group is compromised by her parents' business, which props up the military government. Helping Jed steal arms from her parents' warehouse, she colludes in a plot to assassinate a U.S. counterinsurgency expert, an operation which succeeds but reveals in its aftermath that life is a much dirtier business than she knew. The central character's inexhaustible fragility and self-pity test the reader's patience in this awkwardly-phrased parable of realpolitik.

Kirkus Reviews