The Mourning of Angels

About the Book

"...a compelling story of female initiation." St. Petersburg Times

"I read Patricia Edmisten´s dramatic and sensuous debut novel, ´The Mourning of Angels´ in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Her marvelous evocation of the first days of the Peace Corps provided an escape from the sadness of New York City, where I live, as well as a much-needed perspective on the savagery of that act.

´The Mourning of Angels´ captures the innocence of 1962 and 1963, before the Kennedy assassination, when many of us, swept up in the idealism of such a venture, joined the Peace Corps and journeyed to countries we´d never heard of, and when young women seized the opportunity for a kind of adventure that until then had almost solely been the purview of men. Lydia Schaefer, Edmisten´s 23-year-old protagonist from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is a tough, principled, sometimes provocative, but always emotionally receptive young woman, determined to do her job as a health care worker, first in Arequipa, Peru and later in the coastal town of Ica.

In straightforward, beautifully descriptive prose, subtly impregnated with the political and cultural history of Peru, Edmisten charts Lydia Schaefer´s journey from innocence--she is a Catholic girl, still a virgin, the product of a protective, loving home--to a stark, tragic maturity. Lydia describes her view beyond her barriada in Arequpa. ´Gray and white dominate the landscape. No road is paved. There are no trees. Nothing green. No spring flowers interfere with the dreariness. Looking up, however, there is visual relief. Misti, a 19,150-foot volcano, said to be dormant by experts, but alive to those who know her tremors, rises proudly over The City of my Hope. Snow lavishly bleeds down her sides, like the white mantle of the Madonna.´

As this image of the Virgin´s cloak implies, Lydia struggles with her strong Catholic beliefs in the face of rampant infant mortality, the yearly pregnancies of poor women, and the Church´s refusal to allow birth control. Interestingly, she never gives up her Catholicism, but rather gradually adapts the religion to her new knowledge and beliefs, much as Indians force the Catholic church to incorporate native rituals into the liturgy. She breaks her own rule to remain a virgin until marriage. With a sensuality that is both innocent and literally rapturous, Edmisten writes of Lydia making love with her in-country co-worker, Rafael. He is mestizo with a Spanish father and Indian mother. They are journeying bak to his village beyond Machu Picchu, when they stop to swim in a mountain pool and then make love. ´Rafael´s kiss is moist and sweet, and as he eases on top of me, it becomes more familiar, more urgent. The air is fresh and fragrant, a light breeze glances off our warm bodies. I look up at blinding white clouds and reach my arms out to them. We remain immobile for a few minutes and then slowly rock. A condor soars overhead. I have read of eagles mating in mid-air, free falling, unaware of the doom below. It was like that. The doom she senses in her moment of sexual abandon fortells of political clashes and violence that will irrevocably change her life and radicalize her world view.

Edmisten is masterful in portraying the customs, politics, food, suffering, playful activities and collective nature of life for the Indians of that region. She elegantly weaves in strands of history and political theory. Though generous of spirit throughout, by the end of her painful story, Edmisten has shown how the Church, the United States in its fight against communism during that period, the cultural innocence of Americans, the abusive powers within the country are all at least morally complicit in the continuance of devastating poverty, the subjugation of women, and the oppression of Indians.

Reading ´The Mourning of Angels´ in a time of national mourning viscerally reminded me that other cultures and nations have suf

About the Author

From 1962-64, Patricia Taylor Edmisten served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru. A former university professor, she has written extensively about the relationship between social conditions and democracy and has been a consultant for the United Nations, working with women’s groups in Peru and Brazil. She is the author of Nicaragua Divided La Prensa and the Chamorro Legacy, about the origins of the Nicaraguan revolution. Her translation of The Autobiography of Maria Elena Moyano the Life and Death of a Peruvian Activist was published in 2000. Although she has published many poems, this is her first novel.