The Storyteller's Death by Ann Dávila Cardinal
An essay review of a novel perfect for our times
In honor of the spooky month of October, I read The Storyteller’s Death, a 2022 ghost story by Ann Dávila Cardinal. It is her third novel and her first for adults. Cardinal enters this space with the same curiosity, wonderment, and innocence that represents the youth she typically writes for, with the sophistication and interests adult readers expect. The Storyteller’s Death will take you on an escape to Puerto Rico to rain forests, the sea, and a traditional European family saturated in devastating secrets. If you’ve ever been to Puerto Rico as a tourist, this is not the PR you know.
Ann started this novel as a short story while she was a cuentista student at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She continued working on it over years until it became the Great Latin-American Novel. After earning her MFA, Ann worked at VCFA as director or recruitment, when I was lucky to have met her, and left recently to write full time. (Congrats, Ann, you’ve done the thing!)
Fear not, TSD is not spine-tingling horror of the likes of Shirley Jackson, though it is magical realism. Set in 1970’s New Jersey and Puerto Rico, our protagonist, Isla is haunted constantly by omnipresent tales transmitted to her as dioramic visions. They come at specific times of the day, every day. The visions appear when a relative dies and finally shares their secret. For instance, she learns her great uncle, Tío Ramon, had been mayor for one month, as she suddenly finds herself superimposed on a street lined with cars from the 30’s. Her smooth skinned, young uncle passes by on a parade truck, waving to the townspeople dressed in early 20th century garb. Once it’s over, she returns to the current place and time.
This isn’t so much a curse, as a gift, if the the recipient knows how to deal with the constant barrage of life stories. The deceased elders want to ensure their lives are understood. No one in the Sanchez family talks about the visions they, too, see, or how they manage them, because if they did, too many family secrets would be unearthed. Thus, cuentistas are burdened by their ancestor’s pasts. Isla’s mother, Elena, so bombarded by the visions turns to alcohol to escape them.
Isla finds that by writing each story in her notebook, the visions stop. If her version of the story isn’t right, she’ll keep seeing it until she notices the detail she is missing and corrects the narrative. Except for one—the story of her great grandfather’s death, seen from a dangerous dimension.
The book takes us on a massive treasure hunt, story by story, vision by vision, to discover how her great-grandfather really died, a secret so scandalous no Sanchez will talk about it. Besides, no one knows the truth, except for one. And she’s dead.
Isla travels to PR every summer from New Jersey to stay with her Tía Alma, oblivious of her privilege as a white gringa of wealthy European Spanish ancestry. While Isla is young, it is understandable that she would not notice the chasm between her world and that of native islanders, after all, her lifestyle doesn’t change much from her school year in New Jersey. Talking with Claridad, a local, she denies being from a rich family.
“Oh, we’re not rich! I’m—
Claridad slammed down the bottle of cleaner and the rag and looked at me with fiery eyes. “Those shoes, are they new?”
I looked down at my Reeboks, confused. “Yes, but—”
“Does your family live in a nice house? New car? Do you go out to dinner?”
“Well, yes, but I don’t see—”
“Have you ever seen anyone in your family clean a toilet?”
I stuttered at this seemingly ridiculous question, but then I stopped and thought about it. Once a week, I’d come home and the house smelled like ammonia and the bathroom was sparkling, the toilet water turned a magical blue.
This is the first moment she begins to recognize the racial caste system, unspoken by only the elite. It is ironic that such a proudly bigoted and self-righteous family would be so tight-lipped about discussing it, but secrecy is their best talent.
Dávila uses a naïve young character to represent uneducated readers unaware of the systemic racism and oppression in Puerto Rico due to the Spanish colonization, and American occupation after the Spanish-American War. Americans wonder why Puerto Rico doesn’t want statehood. But without the historical context, one wouldn’t know that hundreds of years of subjugation and slavery by outside governments and disallowed their own sovereignty, would make anyone wary of electing to be under the rule of an aforementioned government.
Earlier in the story, Isla finds herself at a rally for Puerto Rican independence, something she knows nothing about. She is drawn to it by the “crowd in the street moved like one being, rising and falling and waving their arms. The parade was a creature all its own, a boisterous, showy animal with a loud heartbeat.” As she enjoys what she perceives a celebration, she is spotted by a friend, José
“You shouldn’t be out here,” he said in the same loud whisper my aunt had employed to say the same thing.
“Why?” I hated how little my voice sounded, but my throat was tight.
“Because this doesn’t concern you.”
I felt the heat rise to my face with his patronizing tone. “Yes, it does! My family—”
“Your family are probably PNP, Isla".”
I looked at him blankly.
He rolled his eyes and looked like someone else entirely. “Pro-statehood, right?”
I hated ever more that he was right… Why hadn’t I ever inquired about the island’s politics before? What as the PNP, and why was there the assumption that I would blindly follow?
What I appreciated so much about this book is that while it was an enjoyable escape, the sensory details of Puerto Rican flora, food, and coming of age, it was also so very relevant to today’s politics.
American’s grapple with a racial hierarchy every day, while we have barely acknowledged the damage of our own colonization. Native Americans, exposed to a near genocide, live today in poverty and violence. Black Americans are killed every day by the very police institution that was created in the 18th century to do just that. Anti-Asian sentiment has risen since Covid-19, meanwhile if the average American knows anything about Japanese internment, I’d be surprised. Anti-Muslim sentiment comes in cycles, particularly after the War in Iraq, while pro-Hamas organizations are recreating an atrocious war on Jews. All of these nightmares are oozing out of the open wound of forceful colonization and exploitation.
Davila brings us a beautiful story of love, mystery, death, ghosts, family, self-discovery, and important history in this poetic literary escape. The novel implies empathy and understanding for undervalued peoples without the pendantics employed by other authors.
Ann says she has been writing this book for her whole life. I suspect even though The Storyteller’s Death has been typed up and published, this cuentista is still writing this story.
Buy The Storyteller’s Death here
