The Great Divide - Cristina Henríquez - ★★★★.¼

AUTHOR: Cristina Henríquez

GENRE: Historical Literary Fiction

PUBLICATION DATE: March 5, 2024

RATING: 4.25 stars.

In a Nutshell: A literary fiction focussed on Panama during the time of the construction of the Panama Canal. Note that this isn’t a book directly about the canal or its construction, but about the people connected to the canal in some way or the other during that period. A great book if you go in with the right expectations and enjoy character-oriented fiction.

Plot Preview:

1907, Panama.

Francisco, a Panamanian fisherman, hates the commercialisation of his country under the foreigners, and hence resents his son Omar’s joining the canal construction crew. Omar, however, wants to learn and earn more than his little village can offer him.

Sixteen-year-old Ada has heard about Panama having many jobs. She has stowed away to Panama, hoping to get some work and earn enough for her ailing sister’s surgery back in Barbados. Her mother Lucille, a tailor, doesn’t yet know of her running away from home, but when she finds out the reason, will she be forgiving?

John Oswald, an American medical expert, has only one goal for his work in Panama: to eradicate malaria. His wife Marian, not the same after a tragedy that changed their lives, also accompanies him to Panama, though there isn’t much left in their marriage.

These are just a few of the many characters you will meet over the course of this novel. Through their eyes, you will get a little glimpse what happened in Panama during the construction of the canal that runs till today.

The story comes from the third person perspectives of multiple characters.

I picked up this book because I thought it would tell me how and why the Panama Canal was built. But the story turned out to be so much more! As a literary fiction fan and as someone who loves character-oriented storylines, this revelation came as a pleasant surprise. Once I altered my reading expectations from historical to literary, I was fully absorbed by the storyline.

There is no overarching plot in the novel. So if you wish to read this book hoping to know the hows and whys of the construction of the Panama Canal, you won’t get *that* much information. This is not a novel ABOUT the canal construction but a novel DURING the canal construction. It is not about the place but about its people. Only a small part of the book deals with the American perspective. I applaud this decision of keeping the story of Panama focussed on the Panamanians and other coloured characters.

The title offers a clear idea of the core content. The “great divide” existed not just across the two oceans that the governments were trying to connect but also across the people of and in Panama, many of whose lives were upturned simply because they happened to live near the land taken over for the canal construction. Whenever we read of such larger-than-life projects in fiction, rarely do we get to see the picture of the manual blood and toil that went into the work. This book is one rare exception, and I respect the author for choosing to tell the story from their eyes.

The characters are the heart and soul of this book. I loved their diversity in terms of ethnicity, nationality, and social standing. We understand from local Panamanians how their life has been altered by this forced canal construction, we see the lives of the workers who migrated to Panama from the surrounding Caribbean nations and beyond to work on the canal, and we hear the supposedly superior perspective of the Americans and the French who have taken up the project and are willing to do anything they can to ensure its (and their) success. All the characters are represented realistically, with enough shades of grey to make them human rather than caricatures.

This book is clearly a labour of love by the author, but even its enjoyment will need to be a labour of love by the reader. The start of the book is somewhat episodic, so the progress is slow, and at times, frustrating. Each of the initial chapters focusses on one character, and every subsequent chapter brings a new, often unrelated character. This goes on till at least 30-35%, after which you begin to see hints of the connection across the characters. So, you need to have a lot of patience at the start as it feels more like a short story collection than a novel for the first one-third or so. But the patience is worth it. Once the connection across the characters began popping up, the book turns into a jigsaw puzzle with the stunning final picture coming into view.

Despite the plethora of characters, I was never once confused about who’s who. The chapters that introduce these people are well detailed, and establish their persona clearly before moving on to the next character. The elaborate backstories and plotting to keep all the character arcs in sync were impeccable.

The author has captured the pulse of the era and the location through her descriptions. It is so easy to visualise the place as well as the people, thanks to the lyrical writing. She even incorporates the beliefs and superstitions of the various cultures, while also capturing their solidarity, their resilience, their family values, and their independence of spirit. The plot feels like an ode to all those unsung heroes whose sacrifices made the canal possible.

I especially admire the story’s candour. The characters don’t mince words when it comes to declaring their opinions about the external influences ruining their lives. The selfishness, rudeness, racism, and even the ignorance of some Americans who were in Panama comes out clearly. It is refreshing to see the book not indulge in white glorification but stress on their flawed attitudes and their blind adherence to profits and personal success with no eye on the human cost. At the same time, not all the whites are painted as villains tarnished by greed. If Kristin Hannah had shown even half of this cultural sensitivity and sensibility while writing ‘The Women’, it would have been a winner for me.

Only two issues:

1. The ending left me wanting more. The character arcs do come to a satisfying end, and not even in a forced HEA. It was a genuine ‘Life Goes On’ kind of finish. But something still felt missing. I must also add that I have no idea how else the author could have ended this complicated story.

2. I was keen to read the author’s thoughts on her writing choices for this work, and also a small note on the background, the significance, the cost (financial and human) of construction, and the issues currently faced by the Panama Canal thanks to climate change. But my ARC had no elucidatory note at all. I hope there is some kind of add-on content with actual facts and an author’s note detailing her writing choices in the final book, because the story deserves it, maybe even needs it.

All in all, this is an intricately-sketched story focussing on the lives of varied people during the construction of the Panama Canal. It is not a story of the revolutionary waterway, but a story of some flawed humans and their lives against the background of this massive construction endeavour.

Much recommended to lovers of literary fiction who would love to see a historical story from the eyes of the characters who lived through it. From this character-oriented book, you will learn a bit about the Panama Canal, but you will learn much more about humans and what drives them.

This was my first book by this author, and I’d love to read more of her work. Such books show why good writing is a combination of art + craft. I hope that readers in this world of instant gratification will have the patience to see its beauty unfold.

My thanks to Ecco and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Great Divide”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.