Fruit of the Drunken Tree
Ingrid Rojas Contreras’s debut novel The Fruit of the Drunken Tree (2018) is a powerful articulation of life in Colombia in the 1980s and 90s and is an eloquent example of an Own Voices narrative. Told predominately from young Chula’s perspective as she looks back on her comfortable life in a gated community in Bogotá, from the refugee life she comes to inhabit in LA, this story shines light on the traumas many immigrant families veil in silence once they arrive on American soil. But Chula is not the only young girl whose life is turned upside down and inside out by the violence of Escobar’s Colombia; teenage Petrona, Chula’s family’s maid, also has a tale of trauma, loss, and survival. As the plot develops, the two girls’ lives and stories become intertwined and Rojas Contreras crafts her novel alternating between their voices.
This historical fiction draws its English-reading audience to the cities and jungles of late twentieth-century Colombia. Based loosely on Rojas Contreras’s girlhood experiences, this is a powerful, empathy-building story about how war and terror shatter lives and ravage families. And yet, both Petrona and Chula survive; scarred though they be. While silence is a prominent theme in Fruit of the Drunken Tree, the novel exists as a means to tell painful stories.
This is a great novel to read in honor of Latinx Heritage Book month (September 15 – October 15), as it takes its reader to Colombia with colombianas as guides. The Spanish language interwoven with English, the nods to superstitions and traditions specific to Colombia, the food and characters, transport Rojas Contreras’s readers to her childhood Colombia. As an American woman who has yet to visit Colombia, I realize there were likely elements of this story that I failed to grasp. In fact, this is a novel I would love to discuss with Colombians, hear their perspectives on the themes and imagery; I have no doubt they would see things I did not.
On the other hand, this book may haunt Americans—particularly of my generation—as we look back on the South and Central American immigrants who settled into our communities, attended school with us, and never shared their family’s stories. It seems that we Americans tend to assume people come to our country because it is “the land of opportunity.” The Fruit of the Drunken Tree forces us to sit with the terror from which many refugees flee and the silence which shrouds their past in the context of their new American lives. To be clear, this is not an easy read. Rojas Contreras’s main characters are children when the violence of the time ravages their lives. Chula, Petrona, and Chula’s older sister, Cassandra, represent a Colombian generation of children whose childhoods were stolen prematurely as they struggled to survive the brutal carnage of late twentieth-century Colombia. The three girls deal in different ways, just as all victims of violence and terror no doubt do: some cling to a past relationship, others focus entirely on the promise of a new future, and a few occupy a life based entirely on a lie of omission.
While I can’t say I enjoyed The Fruit of the Drunken Tree—it is not a book that gives pleasure or joy—I did appreciate its project and the empathy it constructs in the heart and mind of the reader. As our world increasingly debates immigration, books like these, that reveal the raw, brutal realities of refugees, seem wildly important. For those of us privileged enough to have come of age in relative safety it is imperative we realize that many children around the world do not share that security. What’s more, it is likely a novel that the writing of which was cathartic for author Ingrid Rojas Contreras; and, in turn, it normalizes the telling of past trauma and may inspire others with painful backstories to share their stories so as to connect with and educate others.
A Few Great Passages:
“We called it el Borrachero, the Drunken Tree. Papá called it by its scientific name, Brugmansia arborea alba, but nobody ever knew what he was talking about. It was a tall tree with twisted limbs, big white flowers, and dark brown fruits. All of the tree, even the leaves, was filled with poison. The tree drooped half over our garden, half over the neighborhood sidewalk, releasing a honeyed scent like a seductive, expensive perfume” (7).
“Everyone tried to talk to Abuela, but Abuela only said the same old things: We shall eat more and we shall eat less. When at dinner you have fire, for breakfast you’ll have water. What is left for time, time will take away. It is only death that doesn’t have a remedy” (115).
Bibliography:
Rojas Contreras, Ingrid. Fruit of the Drunken Tree. Doubleday: New York, 2018.
