HarperCollins, 2010. $26.99 (cloth)

Reviewed By Larry Mazzeno

I have been planning to read something by Isabel Allende for years. Maybe because I was intrigued by the dust jacket blurbs on one of her novels that my wife picked up awhile back. Maybe because I knew she was the niece of Salvador Allende, former president of Chile who was assassinated in a military coup in 1973. This woman should have a wealth of information to share just by tapping into her personal life. Apparently she used these events to shape The House of Spirits (1982), a multigenerational novel about life and politics in Latin America. Allende lives in California now, but her interest in the region where she was raised continues to fuel her creative energies.

So when I saw Island Beneath the Sea on the library bookshelf last week, I decided ‘now’ was as good a time as any to get acquainted with Allende’s work. On the whole, I’m glad I did. Like its predecessors, this is a historical novel. The settings are Haiti and New Orleans in the closing decades of the eighteenth century. While the cast of characters is rather large, the principal focus is on the mulatta slave Zarité, who is bought by French plantation owner Toulouse Valmorain as a servant for his wife. Through Zarité’s eyes readers experience the brutalities of slavery, including the callous treatment of even “privileged” house workers. Zarité’s bed becomes a playground for her master, by whom she bears two children. We also learn about the heroics of a handful of rebels who eventually kick the French off the island. 

When Valmorain’s plantation is attacked, Zarité helps him escape via Cuba to New Orleans, where French refugees from Haiti have their own expatriate community. As Valmorain attempts to ingratiate himself with the Creole families that controls New Orleans society, politics, and business, Zarité fights to win emancipation – something promised to her in exchange for her help in saving the life of Valmorain and his son in Haiti. In what can only be described as supreme irony, however, Valmorain’s legitimate son falls helplessly in love with his half-sister, Zarité’s daughter. In racially divided New Orleans, this is anathema, and Valmorain sees his grand plans falling apart.

It’s probably best if I stop describing the plot at this point so as not to spoil the ending. This barebones summary hardly does justice to the complex tale Allende weaves from the historical record. Does Allende take too many liberties with the facts in having her fictional characters interact with real people? This is a question that might interest literary purists But for those who want to learn something about the origins of the modern island nation of Haiti (a topic of front-page news for several months last year) or about the evils of the slave trade in the Western Hemisphere two centuries ago, Island Beneath the Sea can be a painless (and maybe even an exciting) way to get a good lesson in the history of places not always featured in our modern school curriculum.