The Cemetery of Untold Stories

Written by Julia Alvarez

Narrated by Alma Cuervo

Literary icon Julia Alvarez, the international bestselling author of In the Time of the Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, returns with a luminescent novel about storytelling that reads like an instant classic.

Alma Cruz, the celebrated writer at the heart of The Cemetery of Untold Stories, doesn’t want to end up like her friend, a novelist who fought so long and hard to finish a book that it threatened her sanity. So, when Alma inherits a small plot of land in the Dominican Republic, her homeland, she has the beautiful idea of turning it into a place to bury her untold stories—literally. She creates a graveyard for the manuscript drafts and the characters whose lives she tried and failed to bring to life and who still haunt her.

Alma wants her characters to rest in peace. But they have other ideas and soon begin to defy their author: they talk back to her and talk to one another behind her back, rewriting and revising themselves. Filomena, a local woman hired as the groundskeeper, becomes a sympathetic listener to the secret tales unspooled by Alma’s characters. Among them, Bienvenida, dictator Rafael Trujillo’s abandoned wife who was erased from the official history, and Manuel Cruz, a doctor who fought in the Dominican underground and escaped to the United States.

The Cemetery of Untold Stories asks: Whose stories get to be told, and who's buried? Finally, Alma finds the meaning she and her characters yearn for in the everlasting vitality of stories. Julia Alvarez reminds us that the narratives of ourlives are never truly finished, even at the end.

“Thought-provoking and powerful, The Cemetery of Untold Stories is a balancing act of the everyday and the magical, a blend of history and cuento. Through imperfect characters longing for love and fighting against el olvido, we are reminded that stories have the power to bring us together.”—Jaquira Díaz, author of Ordinary Girl

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 2, 2024
• ISBN: 9798891780637

Julia Alvarez

JULIA ALVAREZ vivió en República Dominicana hasta los diez años, cuando emigró con sus padres a los Estados Unidos. Es autora de varias novelas, obras de no ficción, poesía y literatura infantil y juvenil. Su prolífico trabajo le ha merecido importantes reconocimientos, entre ellos, el premio Latina Leader in Literature y el Hispanic Heritage Award in Literature. Fue nombrada Mujer del Año por la revista Latina y en 2013 el presidente Barack Obama le otorgó la Medalla Nacional de las Artes por su extraordinaria carrera. Sus bestsellers incluyen En el tiempo de las mariposas y De cómo las muchachas García perdieron el acento.

Reviews for The Cemetery of Untold Stories

[janelleailani · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

tbh waste of a credit. good premise, boring/borderline gross story. a woman mentions sucking her husband’s toes.

[CamilaRavagnani · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Beautiful story!!! I loved every minute of it and when I wasn’t listening I was thinking of what would come next.

[celia · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Oh I loved this story. Somehow it rings true. The saving of stories and ideas,with a glimpse into their lives

[loveyoulwt · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

beautiful, i loved the magical realism aspect of the book!

[j99gybv6pc · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It expressed reverence for writing, and for transcendence through art, in original ways. The characters, with all their flaws and strengths, are drawn with honesty and humanity. The narration is entrancing.

[JC lynch · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I couldn’t get into it at the beginning. I almost gave up but I kept going, and I am so glad that I did. I quite liked it. Very interesting plot and weaving together of different stories. Very meta.

[lindaloretz · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Alma, a professor and writer, retires, and she realizes she has many unfinished manuscripts, stories she hasn't finished telling. After burning most of them, she buries some of the manuscripts in land she inherits in the Dominican Republic, creating an air of mystery and intrigue among the barrio inhabitants and visitors. Alma hires Filomena, an illiterate community member, initially to help her burn the boxes of manuscripts and then to act as a caretaker of the buried stories. Some manuscripts refuse to burn, and the subjects of the untold stories speak to Filomena from the makeshift graves: one is Alma's father, and one is titled Bienvenida, referring to the ex-wife of the brutal Dominican dictator Trujillo.

The novel includes heartbreaking and harrowing incidents related to Filomena and her sister, Perla, and Perla's two children. Most of Perla's story is recounted through Filomena's memories. Her strong family bonds, despite estrangement, are essential for developing the themes of the Cemetery of Untold Stories. Alvarez delves into family secrets, hostile governments, immigration issues, and groups that are marginalized in both the United States and the Dominican Republic.

Alma's relationship with her sisters and Filomena's complicated relationship with her sister, Perla, are the baseline for the plot. The story explores many philosophical questions, one of the main ones being: If a person decides to carry their stories to the grave, does anyone else have the right to betray them and tell the stories? Can anyone, such as a writer, unearth the mysteries of another's heart while they are in the afterlife? How does one truly bury secrets? Will ghosts tell the stories? In any case, Alvarez is the consummate storyteller who is in love with writing, and she captures universal sadness and struggles in her characters.

[carriewuj · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Julia Alvarez is such a good story teller - and here she tells several within one, not unlike Scheherazade, which happens to be the pen name of the main character, a Dominican writer. She is ready to retire, leave the states and return to the DR, once her father's will is settled and she and her three sisters divide the family estate. She takes the least desirable plot of land for her concept - a graveyard for untold stories. All the manuscripts she never finished, and the half-begun projects, and most importantly, her father's story of his made-up land that she could never get him to fully explain. While most of the characters are made-up, she includes the historical character, Bienvenida, once wife to the revolutionary cum dictator Trujillo - her story of pain and rejection and control of being married to a terrible man. All the stories/papers/boxes are literally buried in the cemetery - a bit of magical realism - the headstones are all sculptures created by a woman artist, and the caretaker, Philomena, an old local woman can hear the stories tell themselves. The cemetery entrance has a speaker box that demands a story from those who wish to enter and judges their story worthy or not of entry - the most essential criteria being authenticity. So many layers here and also levels of connection between the characters, stories, lives lived. It reminded me a bit of Spoon River Anthology - voices speaking from beyond the grave to tell the truths that can't be told among the living. I think this is one I will need to return to in print, because the audio version was a lot to keep track of. Still Alvarez's beautiful writing and so real characters came through. Favorite quote: 'That's why in certain tribes they say when an old person dies, a library is gone."

[bookwyrmm_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Alverez has a very beautiful and lush writing style, but I had a very hard time following the side stories and keeping all of the characters straight.

[mari5b-373684 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A writer understands that she won't have time to write all the stories she has in her files. When she inherits a land in the Dominican Republic, she moves there and creates a cemetery where she buries each story in its own grave. In the process, she also builds a unique community.

[quondame · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"And regrets are just a way to make the same mistakes over and over."
Fanciful, strange. The lives of the women in this novel have all been molded by men who are either unfaithful, brutal, or both. Their lives remain their own, whether kept to themselves or shared. Alma, a writer who finds she cannot complete stories she has worked on for years, takes advantage of an inheritance in her native Dominican Republic to create a cemetery in which to bury them. But given the right audience, they tell themselves. Thus the reader learns what Alma sought, which is both compelling and disappointing.
The novel also provides excellent depictions of the persistence difficulties arising among siblings.

[banjo123 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An aging writer creates a cemetery for her unfinished manuscripts, those novels that she never managed to write. The book alternated narrators, to tell parts of these stories, and also to show how they weave together. It's a bit magical, and overall just lovely, though there were a few bits that were too much for me. My favorite parts were the relationships between the writer and her sisters, and the story of Bienvenida Trujillo, first wife of the dictator.

[kcshankd · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I ended up liking this more than I thought I would. Took about half the book to get going, but in the end thinking about who gets to tell which stories was worth while. The images of being surrounded by stories amongst a cemetery's headstones was compelling.

[froxgirl · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Stories, stories, stories - so many to be savored in one glorious book! Dona Alma Cruz is a well-known writer from the Dominican Republic (much like Alvarez herself) who has left the US to return to her homeland with the intention of burying her never-and-partially-written stories, to give them a comfortable resting place and to allow her a peaceful retirement. There she hires an elderly neighbor, Filomena, as a caretaker for her and for the slumland she converts into a sculpture garden and home for her unpublished works. Philomena's story, and that of her sister Perla, is told with great tenderness, even though Perla performs a shocking act. The two primary characters whose stories are recounted are of Manuel, Alma's father, who pursues his wife Lucia over the objections of her wealthy family, struggles to become a doctor in the US with his qualifications from the DR, and then finds a sympathetic lover as Lucia rises in the diplomatic world; and Bienvenida, the second wife of El Jefe, the Dominican dictator Trujillo, who suffers through his love, abuse, and his ultimate rejection when she cannot produce an heir. The entwinements between the characters and their lives, alive or not, are remarkably told and the narrative is suffused with empathy, reminding me , in scope and humanity, of The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese. I hope that Julia Alvarez writes on forever!

[shazjhb · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I never read this author. It was a difficult read maybe because of the multiple Spanish words and customs. Set in New York and Dominican Republic it had some interesting characters and storylines.

[thewanderingjew_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The Cemetery of Untold Stories, Julia Alvarez, author; Alma Cuervo, narrator
The novel’s main character, Alma Cruz, begins her successful, clandestine writing life with the alias of Sheherazade, shortly after her mother objects to her telling stories about their lives and threatens to expose her. Her good friend, a highly successful author, sadly suffering from psychosis, is the one who suggests the change. Their friendship will become an untold story as their relationship diminishes with the increasing evidence of her madness.
As Sheherazade, further good fortune follows Alma; she gains success as a writer and also in a successful teaching career. When she retires, some four decades later, she leaves America, the country that had welcomed her and provided her a safe haven, to return to her homeland, the Dominican Republic. There she constructs a cemetery for all the stories she had never published, and all the stories revealed to her by visitors. Their silent stories are given voice, and a legacy, as they are buried in the hallowed ground that she has created. Through the stories she relates, truths are uncovered. The barbarism of the assassinated dictator, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina, is exposed as well, as several female characters reveal their stories. The relationships between various characters are further explored through their stories, whether they were published or remain hidden in notebooks.
What seems at first to be several disparate stories, coalesce to form a novel that is also about the history of life in the Dominican Republic for those who loved and suffered from the love of their dictator. It is sometimes hard to tell which stories are told and which remain untold. Are they all still unfolding? This novel tells the stories that are rooted in both the life and the ancestry of the author, Julia Alvarez.
As Cruz tells the stories that explore the lives of all the characters that she was never able to put into print, they take on a life of their own. Their untold stories are stored in the boxes that she cherishes. She hires Sophie to organize them. She places Filomena Altogracia Moronto in charge of the stories, and Filomena listens to the new stories that unfold, as well. The characters will grow and shrink throughout the novel, and at times, it is hard to distinguish the supposed factual character from the fictional character, the real life of the author in the novel and the fictional life she creates. The novel, therefore, would be better in print, than in an audio, because some of the narrative feels disjointed and needs to be reread. It is hard to do that in an audio unless you do it at the moment it occurs, and sometimes, you are far beyond that point when you realize it is confusing.
In the end, everyone’s life is a tale of untold stories, secrets and memories. Alma stored all of these stories in her cemetery so they would live on, in a sense, though buried. Friendships and love affairs come and go, success can be fleeting, but the cemetery would remain as a sacred repository of undeveloped characters that never got to see the light of day or to appear in the pages of a book. This character, Alma Cruz, collected stories that represented the lives of all the characters that would have lived in her novel or in the novels of others who never published their tales. Everyone’s life contains stories too, and together, their tales occupied graves in the cemetery of stories, the place they could be honored and would live on, after a fashion.

[junipersun · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A different kind of story, essentially about learning how to share our selves, our lives, the interconnectedness between us, and letting go of the past.
The setting in a poor section of the Dominican Republic gives American readers a view into another culture. Nice.
Some of the characters might spend a little too much time in their head.
Since this was an ARC and maybe wording may change, I won't put the quotes in the Common Knowledge, but here.
"The untold is sacred ground. Whatever is buried there should be left alone. It's called 'the afterlife' for a reason." (p.204)
"Everybody loves everybody more. No need to bring out the mearsuring cup." (p.206)
"...the earth itself was storying." (p.208)
"And regrets are just a way to make the same mistakes over and over." (p.220)

[paperdolllady · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The structure of this novel--presented without chapters and in four parts--nevertheless keeps the reader engaged. The premise of a place to bury untold stories, with its magic realism element, is so skillfully crafted and interwoven in the flow of the storyline, thus creating an overall intriguing tale.

[griffin_reads · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Cemetery of Untold Stories is a beautiful rendition of what happens when a story goes untold. It describes not only how people don't get to hear the story, but how the story can change someone's perspective of the person or thing it is about. It looks at how a story being told by someone else can change the person it is being told about, and how these stories impact the perceptions people have of the topic.

I loved the magical realism elements to the story, and the multiple overlapping storylines. I found it to be quite immersive, and I was very interested in learning about these character's lives.

It was a bit slow at times, however, and it took me a while to get through. It does also follow the Sally Rooney trend of not indicating speech with quotation marks, which I am very much not a fan of. Overall though, it was a pretty good book.

[mapg.genie · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Creative! Thought provoking! Great storytelling; stories within stories!

The title caught my eye; I'm glad it did.

What happens to untold stories? Are they lost forever? Should all stories be told?

[erinclark_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In The Cemetery of Untold Stories Alma Cruz is a retiring writer and writing professor. She is quite famous and is an icon in her native country of the Dominican Republic. When Alma inherits a plot of land in the Dominican Republic from her father she decides to move there permanently. But what to do with all the unfinished stories she has saved over the years? She has boxes upon boxes of these unfinished and overly revised stories that were never finished or published. Alma's answer is to create a sculpture garden cemetery to honor these unfinished stories by burying them so they can rest in peace. However many of the characters in these stories still have their tales to tell and will not be quiet. Filomena, the hired grounds keeper can hear these characters speak their truths and it is through her that we get to also listen in. This is a magical and thought provoking tale told in a non linear timeline by multiple characters. This book is beautiful literary fiction full of complicated family stories that weave and interact with each other and along the way thoroughly entertain the reader. I especially enjoyed the interactions of Alma and her sisters, that's what sisters are for. I highly recommend this novel for lovers of magical realism and literary fiction. The narrator as wonderful. 5 stars.

Many thanks to Net Galley and RB Media | Recorded Books for a chance to listen/read to an ARC copy of this audio book.

[booklover217 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"All stories are good stories if you find the right listener."

I was in awe of Julia Alvarez and Edwidge Danticat's discussion of The Cemetery of Untold Stories at The Center for Fiction. Hearing about the power of storytelling and the importance of oral histories to preserve culture left me inspired and I couldn't wait to meet the characters that I heard so much about.

Reading this one felt like I was listening in on all the good chisme being discussed at a family gathering. I instantly fell in love with Filomena and her ability to receive all the stories from the ghosts of the cemetery. I also fell in love with her own personal story that has yet to be told to the world. It has been difficult to read lately but this completely captivated my attention and I found it so easy to immerse myself in this world and forget everything heavy I was going through in real life. Filomena and Bienvenida are unforgettable and by the end of the book I just couldn't let them go. I find myself wondering about them.

This is a book that is heavily driven by the characters and the stories they share and there is no real plot, but the vibes and the feelings are perfect. I loved how some of the ghost stories were interconnected and how the use of language, including Dominican Spanish, added even more flavor. It wasn't my favorite of Alvarez's work, but it is one that I will always think of because it feels like a warm hug from the Caribbean. Thanks to @algonquinbooks for the gifted copy.

Some thoughts I'm left with are:
• Who decides the validity of stories and oral histories?
• What happens to stories when authors stop writing?
• Every story has its ideal listener, so they all need to be told.
• How do authors reconcile aging and end of life with the amount of untold stories left in them?
• The best stories come from your own families.
• Dominican history has facets that have been erased and can only be uncovered through the stories of ordinary people.
• Where do stories go to die?
• Caribbean stories are a vital part of literary legacy.
• You can't undo harmful history without uncovering stories from different aspects of an event.
• "There are stories in the silence."

[carolee888 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I just finished reading The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez. I can sum up my review in these words, I hoped for more.

The beginning was intriguing, a woman writer who got in a rut after her mother died. Her mother complained about the writer exposing family secrets that should have remained buried. After her mother died she started story after story and re-wrote them but they were never good enough for publication. When she inherited a large parcel of worthless land, she wants to make it into a cemetery for untold stories. The land is cleared and some of them are burned, others were put in a plastic lined grave. She hired a woman to take care of the cemetery.

We learn about the writer's family who are bad characters so when the story shifts to the story of the woman who tends the cemetery, I felt hopeful.

Back history brings us to the story of two women, the elder and younger. The younger had a terrible life, she was not even allowed to kept her first name when her old sister demanded that they trade names.

The history of the two sisters unfolds, I did not like the older sister, you can read and find out why. The younger sister's life becomes pitiful and ultimately disappointing.

I wanted to stop reading after a third of the book but got hopeful when the story turned to the younger sister. I did not like the ending.

[browner56 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Alma Cruz, a Dominican novelist and professor nearing retirement, has enjoyed considerable professional success since emigrating from her native land to her current home in Vermont. Like all writers, though, along with the successes, there have been failures in the form of books she cannot seem to finish. These untold stories haunt Alma to the point that when she and her three sisters inherit some rundown properties in the Dominican Republic, she returns home to commit the symbolic act of burying those failed literary efforts in the ground. But the characters in those stories refuse to give up on their tales being told, even if Alma has. Two characters in particular—Bienvenida Trujillo, the second wife of the brutal dictator who terrorized the island for decades, and Manuel Cruz, Alma’s own father who was exiled for his political views—find a way to communicate with each other as well as Filomena, the caretaker in the unique cemetery. While most unfinished books go away quietly—as one of Alma’s colleagues put it: “Some stories don’t want to be told”—these are two that insist on being heard. And what surprising and heartbreaking accounts they end up telling.

In The Cemetery of Untold Stories, celebrated author Julia Alvarez spins this inventive tale, which effectively combines elements of historical fiction and magical realism with a multi-generational family saga in roughly equal measure. That is an impressive feat, especially given how tricky magical realism can be to pull off on its own, much less in concert with other genres. Alvarez does a nice job of moving between the plethora of storylines, starting in the present day with Alma and her family before regressing through the decades where we learn the histories that the spirits of Bienvenida and Manuel have come alive to tell. The writing throughout the novel is sharp and affecting; these are characters that we come to care about, both those in the present (Alma and Filomena) and those from the past. If there was any shortcoming in the book it would be that some of the family dynamics and backstories—usually a strength in the author’s fiction—were a little underdeveloped, particularly those involving Alma’s sisters and mother. Still, this is a minor complaint about what was a highly enjoyable reading experience. It is an easy book to recommend without hesitation.

[pomo58 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez is a magical book about the life stories take on, with or without their creator. It is also a vibrant commentary about whose voices are heard and who gets to tell whose story.

I'll admit upfront I am a big fan of Alvarez, so I came to this expecting something spectacular. My expectations were met and I don't think I am saying that blindly, I have been (once) underwhelmed with something she wrote.

Anyone who has written a lot but published little to nothing understands how that can play with your mind. Even the healthiest will still harbor self-doubt, and the rest of us quit often (which also means we start again often, writing is something many of us simply have to do, even if we believe it will end up being just for ourselves). My personal "cemetery" is actually a couple of file cabinet drawers, but every now and then I hear murmurings, so maybe I need to open myself to possibility.

While I loved this novel, it made me want to go back and reread some of her essays and nonfiction. In particular I plan to go back to Something to Declare, it has been a very long time but for some reason I want to put these works in conversation with each other, and me. Then again, maybe my memory is playing tricks on me. But even if that is the case, I'll still enjoy rereading it.

Highly recommended for those who enjoy, even if just for the duration of a short novel, believing in the power of magic and of story.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.