Island Beneath the Sea: A Novel

by Isabel Allende Narrated by S. Epatha Merkerson

Overview

Born on the island of Saint-Domingue, Zarité-known as Tété-is the daughter of an African mother she never knew and one of the white sailors who brought her into bondage. When twenty-year-old Toulouse Valmorain arrives on the island in 1770, he purchases young Tété for his bride. Yet it is he who will become dependent on the services of his teenaged slave.

Against the merciless backdrop of sugar cane fields, the lives of Tété and Valmorain grow ever more intertwined. When the bloody revolution of Toussaint Louverture arrives, they flee the brutal conditions of the French colony that will become Haiti for the raucous, free-wheeling enterprise of New Orleans. There, Tété finally forges a new life, but her connection to Valmorain is deeper than anyone knows and not easily severed. Isabel Allende crafts the riveting story of one woman's determination to find love amid loss, to offer humanity though her own has been so battered, and to forge her own identity in the cruelest of circumstances.

Editorial Reviews

Donna Seaman

An entrancing and astute storyteller…In a many-faceted plot, Allende animates irresistible characters authentic in their emotional turmoil and pragmatic adaptability…while masterfully dramatizing the psychic wounds of slavery.

San Antonio Express-News

A remarkable feat of prescience…Island Beneath the Sea is rich in drama, setting, themes, characters, dialogue and symbolism…an intriguing and wonderfully woven story.

Corrie Pikul

Two remarkable women whose destinies are entwined face the chaos of this time [eighteenth century Saint-Domingue]…Uncannily relevant.

Associated Press Staff

Epic scope and sweep…[Allende’s] characters, linked by blood, love triangles and even incest, have a depth and complexity that…imbues the proceedings with a lushness bordering on magic realism.

Cathleen Medwick

A lush epic of racism and rebellion which begins in Saint-Domingue (today’s Haiti)…In a culture of violence, Tété proves that ingenuity can be as heroic as love.

NPR.orgNPR.org

…with gorgeous place descriptions, a keen eye for history and a predilection for high drama…There are few more charming storytellers in the world than Isabel Allende.

The Huffington Post

Enthralling, blood-chilling, and heart-breaking…Island Beneath the Sea is a historical novel which works brilliantly in conveying the cyclone that was the eighteenth century.

San Francisco Chronicle

Exuberant passions, strong heroines and intricate plots...a world as enchanted—and enchanting—as it is brutal and unjust... A page-turning drama.

New York Times Book Review

[An] entertaining sweep...The canvas contains no less than the revolutionary history of the world’s first black republic...Allende revels in period details...Her cast is equally vibrant...

Kirkus Reviews

Given recent events, the timing couldn't be better for this historical fiction from Allende (The Sum of Our Days, 2008, etc.), which follows a slave/concubine from Haiti during the slave uprisings to New Orleans in time for the Louisiana Purchase. In 1770, Toulouse Valmorain arrives in Haiti from France to take over his dying father's plantation. He buys the child Zarite to be his new Spanish wife Eugenia's maidservant and has her trained by the mulatto courtesan Violette Boisier, whose charisma could carry a book on its own. Barely into puberty, Zarite is raped by Valmorain, who gives the resulting son to Violette and her French army officer husband to raise as their own. Eugenia bears Valmorain one legitimate heir before she descends into madness. Zarite, who is devoted to pathetic Eugenia until her early death, lovingly raises baby Maurice and runs the household with great competence. She also submits to sexual relations with Valmorain whenever he wants. When Zarite's daughter is born, Valmorain assumes the child Rosette is his and allows her to remain in the household as Maurice's playmate. Actually Rosette's father is Gambo, a slave who has joined the rebels and become a lieutenant to the legendary Toussaint Louverture. When the rebels destroy Valmorain's plantation, Gambo and Zarite help him escape. In return Valmorain promises to free Zarite, who stays with him, she thinks temporarily, for the children's sake. Valmorain relocates to Louisiana, where Eugenia's brother has purchased him land. His new wife, jealous and vindictive Hortense, makes life unbearable for both Zarite and Maurice, who is sent to school in Boston. While Valmorain, less a villain than a man of his time, finally grants Zarite the freedom he's promised, more tragedies await strong-willed Rosette and sensitive, idealistic Maurice, whose love crosses more than racial boundaries. Still Zarite, along with the reader, finds solace in the cast of secondary characters, who also journey from Haiti to New Orleans. A rich gumbo of melodrama, romance and violence.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170382460
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	04/27/2010
Edition description:	Unabridged

Related Subjects

• Fiction
• Literature
• Peoples & Cultures - Fiction
• World Fiction
• Fiction Subjects
• Latin American Peoples & Cultures - Fiction & Literature
• Latin American Fiction
• Historical Fiction
• Literary Styles & Movements - Fiction
• Politics & Social Issues - Fiction
• Women's Fiction
• Caribbeans/West Indians - Fiction
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• Colonial Americas - Historical Fiction
• Fiction - Other
• Multigenerational Sagas
• Slavery - Fiction
• Women around the World

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