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A review by pilartyping
Tiempo Muerto by Caroline S. Hau
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Tiempo Muerto, a novel, by Caroline S. Hau. Pub. 2019 by @ateneopress
For as long as Ive wanted to write, Ive wanted to read a book by someone who’s experienced living their life as a maid/ household helper or in frank terms, as a servant. Though the author is currently a professor and not a maid, this novel has two main characters, one of them a narrator & simultaneously, a maid named Racel. The other main character, Lia, was Racel’s mother’s charge/ward, or alaga; her chapters have an omniscient narrator (almost as if she paid someone to narrate for her…)
Shifting between these 2 perspectives, Tiempo Muerto or “Dead Time” begins with Racel learning news of her mother’s disappearance. Racel has been living in Singapore working as the live-in nanny+maid of an upper middle class family+child. As Racel plans to return to the Philippines, to the island of Banwa (nearest to Iloilo) to try & figure out where her mom may be, Lia is also living in Singapore, but as part of the elite rich & now in need of a change of scenery as her affair w her personal trainer has hit the tabloids, giving her husband’s family the best excuse to push her out & send her third-world ass back to her third-world country.
At Banwa, a small island with one road & Lia’s family— the Agalons— to rule it all (& soon turn their once booming sugar plantation into a first-class, elite exlusive, “private” resort), Racel & Lia meet again at the balay daku— the Agalon’s estate— to try & work together to find Racel’s nay (mom), aka Yaya Alma to Lia. It is in this forced collaboration that we learn more about Banwa & its Other inhabitants, the workers who made the island profitable to the Agalons in the first place.
Stories in this novel are rich w Philippine history, however fictional, & even richer are the characters who tell the stories. However gradual the pacing of this novel is, the desire to learn about Nay Alma’s fate, & the fates of Others living in Banwa, including Racel & Lia, move the novel forward to an ending that may not bring finality or closure, but hope.
s/o to @arkipelagobooks for carrying tis gem & to @mpjustreading for her amazee review💫
For as long as Ive wanted to write, Ive wanted to read a book by someone who’s experienced living their life as a maid/ household helper or in frank terms, as a servant. Though the author is currently a professor and not a maid, this novel has two main characters, one of them a narrator & simultaneously, a maid named Racel. The other main character, Lia, was Racel’s mother’s charge/ward, or alaga; her chapters have an omniscient narrator (almost as if she paid someone to narrate for her…)
Shifting between these 2 perspectives, Tiempo Muerto or “Dead Time” begins with Racel learning news of her mother’s disappearance. Racel has been living in Singapore working as the live-in nanny+maid of an upper middle class family+child. As Racel plans to return to the Philippines, to the island of Banwa (nearest to Iloilo) to try & figure out where her mom may be, Lia is also living in Singapore, but as part of the elite rich & now in need of a change of scenery as her affair w her personal trainer has hit the tabloids, giving her husband’s family the best excuse to push her out & send her third-world ass back to her third-world country.
At Banwa, a small island with one road & Lia’s family— the Agalons— to rule it all (& soon turn their once booming sugar plantation into a first-class, elite exlusive, “private” resort), Racel & Lia meet again at the balay daku— the Agalon’s estate— to try & work together to find Racel’s nay (mom), aka Yaya Alma to Lia. It is in this forced collaboration that we learn more about Banwa & its Other inhabitants, the workers who made the island profitable to the Agalons in the first place.
Stories in this novel are rich w Philippine history, however fictional, & even richer are the characters who tell the stories. However gradual the pacing of this novel is, the desire to learn about Nay Alma’s fate, & the fates of Others living in Banwa, including Racel & Lia, move the novel forward to an ending that may not bring finality or closure, but hope.
s/o to @arkipelagobooks for carrying tis gem & to @mpjustreading for her amazee review💫