La Tercera (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781641293907)

In her first novel since Insurrecto, Gina Apostol assembles a vision of Philippine history from the 19th century to present day in the fragmented story of the Delgados, a family surviving across generations of colonization, catastrophe, and war.

Rosario, a Filipina novelist in New York City, has just learned of her mother's death in the Philippines. Instead of rushing home, she puts off her return by embarking on a remote investigation into her family's history and her mother's supposed inheritance, a place called La Tercera, which may or may not exist. Rosario catalogs generations of Delgado family bequests and detritus: maps of uncertain purpose, rusted chicken coops, a secret journal, the words to songs sung at the family home during visits from Imelda Marcos.

Each life Rosario explores opens onto an array of other lives and raises a multitude of new questions. But as the search for La Tercera becomes increasingly labyrinthine, Rosario's mother and the entire Delgado family emerge in all their dizzying complexity: traitors and heroes, reactionaries and revolutionaries. Meanwhile, another narrative takes shape--of the country's erased history of exploitation and slaughter at the hands of American occupying forces.

La Tercera is Gina Apostol's most ambitious, personal, and encompassing novel: a story about what seems impossible--capturing the truth of the past--and the terrible cost to a family, or a country, that fails to try.

Author: Gina Apostol
ISBN-10: 164129390X
ISBN-13: 9781641293907
Publisher: Soho Press
Language: English
Published: 05/02/2023
Pages: 480
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.75lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.30w x 1.60d

Review Citation(s):
Booklist 04/15/2023 pg. 21
Publishers Weekly 05/08/2023