Review: Daughter of Fortune

As I mentioned earlier, I was really hesitant to read “Daughter of Fortune”, by Isabel Allende. My reasons are all equally lame. I didn’t like the cover. It was too expensive. It had an Oprah Book Club imprint on it. The last reason, and the real reason I didn’t want to read it was b/c I didn’t like the movie version of “The House of the Spirits” and I was convinced I didn’t like Allende’s work.

That’s right. I wouldn’t read anything based on a movie. That I saw in college. Twelve years ago. When I was drunk.

I’m happy to report that I’m an Allende Convert. I just did a little Google…..did you know she lives in the US and speaks perfect English, but writes ONLY in Spanish? Did you know her uncle was Salvador Allende, former president of Chile, who was murdered in a coup? Did you know that she doesn’t write any outlines for her books, she just takes notes on random pieces of paper, tickets stubs, napkins, etc., and spreads them all on a table and then writes her drafts from beginning to end?

I think that is amazing, considering how complex and convoluted the degrees of separation between the characters in Daughter of Fortune.

Long story short, and without giving away the ending…….Eliza is the adopted Chilean daughter of Miss Rose Sommers and her two brothers John and Jeremy, three English immigrants living in Valparaiso, Chile in the mid-19th century. Actually, Eliza wasn’t officially adopted, she was left on the Sommers’ front step when she was just days old and the family raised her as a European young woman.

At 16, Eliza has an affair with Joaquin Andieta, an employee at her uncle’s company. Andieta, however, has dreams of panning for gold in California and boards a ship destined for San Francisco, leaving Eliza heartbroken. Soon after, Eliza realizes she is pregnant and, enlisting the help of a Chinese cook named Tao Chi ‘En, stows away in the ships hull for two months so she can join Andieta in California. Eliza and Tao (who is actually a physician) develop an unlikely and deep friendship. (Chinese and Chileans did not normally mix and mingle).

Upon reaching San Francisco, Eliza treks up the California “mother lode” from San Francisco to Sacramento, in search of Andieta. Along the way, she poses as a Chinese boy and befriends a traveling brothel, who becomes her temporary family.

Andieta proves elusive and after a while, Eliza returns to San Francisco to her friend Tao and becomes his roommate, his best friend and his assistant in his practice, while still posing as a boy.

…..And that is just about half of the story. Characters are introduced and surface in the most unlikely places several years later. Everyone is connected in the most strange and bizarre ways. In addition, Allende describes the Gold Rush in a way that most history books do not, from the eyes of the Chileans, the Mexicans, the Chinese, the prostitutes and the madams who all immigrated to California to get rich quick or die trying.

I highly recommend this book for book clubs. I could talk about this book for days.