The ending was a bit of a letdown. It just sort of stopped.

3.5

Such a beautiful book, intergenerational legacies of trauma and connection to other world/intuiting/healing/etc, loads of CWs trauma, incredible layering of the horrible and the divine, really amazing read

[Read as part of my MFA in Creative Writing]

In the memoir The Man Who Could Move Clouds, author Ingrid Rojas Contreras weaves the story of her family, the disinterment of her grandfather, and the magic and violence of Colombia to form a compelling narrative of memory, ritual, and the repeating nature of time. The story anchors around her and her mother’s return to Colombia to disinter her grandfather, a request he made in a shared dream to be disinterred and reburied elsewhere to finally rest after spending his life as a healer, a curandero. However, the rest of the memoir moves in and out of the past and Contreras is able to use time to not only see her own past and how it shaped her future to this point but also how the past of her mother and grandfather influenced her life from a young age.

From a craft perspective, time is often used to anchor a story and provide definition, but rather than be confusing, her non-linear storytelling provides a timelessness that helps greater feeling of the story. Her mother told her that “good divination is the art of a good story” (157) and what Contreras provides is a good story that feels magical in the way it is told. I enjoyed the entire time I was reading this book and felt that her story was so full of magical resonance it didn’t matter that we grew up in wildly different circumstances, but instead connected through the feeling of understanding that a good story brings.

I never really was pulled into it this story, but in the spirit of never not finishing a book I slowly got through it. Our author grew up in Colombia before escaping due to political unrest. Her family possesses the gift of being healers, her grandfather, her mother, and her all share this power and must figure out how to control it. The thread that is woven through the story is that Contreras and her mother are attempting to go spread the ashes of her deceased grandfather so he can be at peace. Some parts were more engaging than others, and the photo pages spread throughout the book made for good stopping points. A unique look at the indigenous culture and how family history can be preserved and passed down generations. Some good kernels for thought but not quite the gripping story I was expecting.