A review by lilias
Of Love and Shadows by Isabel Allende

dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

I think the first time I heard the word “disappeared” used as a verb, an especially haunting use of the word, was when I learned about Pinochet in college. Of Love and Shadows is Chile under the dictatorship of Pinochet. Author Isabel Allende never utters his name, for this is a story about the effects of dictatorship on the citizenry, of the cruelty of the lower ranks of the army. 

The story really starts with the disappearance of a teenaged girl, Evangelina, who is taken from her family by soldiers in the middle of the night. Irene, the heroine of the story, is a journalist whose upper class naïveté recedes as she starts her search for Evangelina. She is joined by Francisco, the photographer who accompanies her on stories and who is also the son of a Marxist professor. He is a loving guide for the bold and determined Irene. Their search takes them through the horrors of dictatorship: Friends ordered to execute friends with whom they had once played as children. Morgues full of bodies mutilated by torture. People barely more alive than ghosts, having had all purpose of their lives stripped away.  Families made smaller and smaller as members are disappeared, never to be seen again. With each grim discovery, Irene changes as a person, and her life takes on new meaning. She uses her journalistic skills to do what she can to expose the wrongs, putting her own life in danger. 

This is one of Isabel Allende’s lesser-known books, but I think there is something particularly special about it because it feels especially personal. She was also a journalist when she was living in exile in Venezuela, having had fled Chile when Pinochet, with the help of the US government, had ousted her uncle, Salvador Allende. Like Irene and Francisco, Isabel Allende did what she could to help save people escape the regime. Of Love and Shadows feels semi-autobiographical, at least in sentiment, and it’s a particularly raw book from Isabel Allende.