Introduction

"A gripping story of love, politics, greed and good intentions."—MSNBC.com

"Remarkable...Saving the World depicts the need to belong to something deeper and more enduring than ourselves." —The Washington Post Book World

Alma, the narrator of Saving the World, discovers a small historical footnote while doing research for a novel: In 1803, a Spanish doctor crossed the Atlantic with twenty-two orphan boys—live carriers of the smallpox vaccine—to inoculate the population of Spain's American colonies. Accompanying them on the two-year voyage was a mysterious woman, Isabel Sendales y Gómez, the rectoress of the orphanage. Captivated by Isabe'’s courage, Alma decides to tell the grueling story of their journey.

Meanwhile, Alma's husband, working with an organization committed to eradicating AIDS in developing countries, travels to the Dominican Republic. When his life is threatened, it is Isabel's strength and resolve that arouse Alma's unexpectedly heroic action.

This novel within a novel presents the radiant stories of two women swept up in campaigns against the scourges of their day.

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Excerpt

1

In the fall of her fiftieth year, Alma finds herself lost in a dark mood she can’t seem to shake. It’s late September; she has actually not turned fifty yet, but she has already given that out as her age, hoping to get the fanfare and menopause jokes over and done with. It’s not her own mortality that weighs heavily on her. In fact, it makes her sad when she reads that women of her profile (active, slender, vegetarian, married) will probably live—if they take care of themselves—to

ninety and beyond.

She should probably feel glad that her glass of time is half full. But instead she wonders who might be alive in her dotage whom she would care to be with? Richard, her husband, overworked and project-driven, will probably not live that long; Tera, her best friend, overweight and full of political-activist rage, will likely die before Alma does; her saintly neighbor Helen, already in her seventies, fat chance she’ll stick around. Day after day, Alma feels that peppery anxious feeling that she has truly lost her way.

Earlier this year, she went to see the local, small-town psychiatrist, a very short man with an oversized face that reminded her of the postdeaf Beethoven. She explained that she felt as if a whirling darkness were descending on her, like dirty water going down a drain or that flock of birds in the film by Hitchcock. The doctor, who’d been jotting down her explanation, had looked up. He was so young; he probably hadn’t seen the film. “What kind of birds?” he had asked.

At least he is being thorough, Alma thought.

He asked a lot of questions, referring to what seemed a long list on a clipboard—about whether Alma had fantasies of killing herself, whether she had a gun in the house (Richard did keep an old shotgun down in the basement, which he would occasionally use on the raccoons and groundhogs that invaded his garden), whether there had been any untoward events in their family.

Alma tried to be accurate and provide him with the information requested. She was baffled by this dark mood but still trusting that medical science in the guise of Dr. Payne (incredibly, that was his name) could help her get back to her old self.

But after months go by and one after another of the antidepressants Dr. Payne prescribes fail by her lights—she is “better” but numb all the time; she sleeps well but can no longer smell the paperwhites Richard brings her; nothing truly upsets her, even when her agent, Lavinia, sends her an ultimatum letter about Alma’s overdue novel. (She is going on her third year overdue.)

One afternoon when she is trying to rouse herself into some wifely attractiveness before Richard gets home, she goes into their bathroom, opens the cabinet and collects all the prescription bottles she has accumulated over the last months of treatment, and for some reason, rather than flush them down the toilet, she puts on her coat and walks to the back of their property near the tree line. She scoops a small hole in the ground with her boot and pours the contents of these vials inside—no doubt hundreds of dollars worth—then kicks some dirt over it. She is concerned that deer or raccoons or groundhogs will find this trove and drug themselves into a stupor and thus become easy targets for anyone with a shotgun, perhaps Richard himself. In these small ways Alma finds she can still trust herself. She rolls a heavy boulder over the spot, circles it with the upended emptied bottles wedged into the earth (the ground has not yet frozen), and then waits, for it seems some ceremony should close this moment. But she can think of nothing, so she merely stands there for a few more minutes before the dusk and cold draw her back indoors.

She tells no one, not Richard, not Tera, whose impatience with Alma’s persisting sadness Alma can hear in her friend’s voice. As always, Tera is involved in one or another of her causes—antiwar, antimines, antisomething—and any confession on Alma’s part will bring on an invitation to join Tera on the front lines. But Alma knows she can’t treat this thing with peace rallies and political work. So, no, she does not tell Tera either. (Another sign that her instincts are still trustworthy: she knows who to talk to, mostly who not to talk to.) Most definitely, Tera won’t approve. We’re all so goddamn lucky: hers is one of the voices lodged in Alma’s head. Depression is nothing but a first-world dis-ease (she parcels out the word that way). Tera has been Alma’s best friend since Alma ended up in this rural state two decades ago, still young enough to be thought of as a waif, not a lost soul. Now Alma is older, and as her sense of detachment grows, she watches Tera go about her campaigning, her picketing, her trips down to Washington with her live-in companion, Paul, to protest any number of atrocities that Tera somehow always finds out about; e-mail has proliferated her sources of horror. Alma watches Tera the way she would a movie, a good movie, but one she has seen several times already and that, therefore, leaves her slightly bored.

Alma pretends to Richard that she is still taking her antidepressants, but she goes about her own way. She writes Lavinia back and tells her an outright lie, that the novel is done and she is merely going through it one last time. She is still making an effort to maintain her old life, covering for herself, as if she is setting up mock models in one or another room, Alma cooking, Alma going to bed, Alma writing a letter, Alma writing a novel—displays people can look at through a lit up window—but meanwhile she has slipped out the back door with no idea where she is going except somewhere far from this place.

She has every intention of returning—that, in part, is the reason for her secrecy. But she has no story yet to lead her out of her dark mood and restore her to the life that, she has to agree with Tera, she’s damn lucky to be living.

From SAVING THE WORLD by Julia Alvarez. © 2006 by Julia Alvarez. Reprinted by permission of Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

From the Publisher:

1. The two stories in this novel—Alma Huebner’s contemporary story and Isabel Sendales y Gómez’s nineteenth-century story—are narrated from strikingly different points of view. Alma’s is told in third person (she did this, she thought that). Isabel’s is told in first person (I did this, I thought that). Why do you think the author chose these particular points of view for her two characters?

2. Alma is inspired by Isabel’s story. Isabel’s courage and strength of character help Alma cope with her own fears and with the frightening situations she ultimately encounters. What in Alma’s character might have impressed and inspired Isabel?

3. Both women are attracted to and influenced by men with visions of helping mankind. What are the other clear parallels between these women’s lives and struggles?

4. Which character do you most identify with and why? Would you make the same decisions as that character?

5. After Don Francisco finishes dictating a letter addressed to his wife, Doña Isabel begins to cry, moved by his gentle words (page 204). “Some day,” he says to Isabel, “someone will write you such a letter, Doña Isabel. And you will think of me, perhaps.” Why do you suppose he says that to her, and how would you describe their relationship?

6. Helen is the only person to whom Alma confides about being unable to finish the novel. Why do you think Alma is able to entrust Helen with her doubts and fears? Is there something special about Helen that allows Alma to divulge her secrets?

7. What motivates people to try to “save the world”? What has/would motivate you to take up a humanitarian cause?

8. Is there a right way to carry out our humanitarian urges? In this novel, many characters try, in their own ways, to better the lives of the people around them. How did Tara, Mickey, and Hannah, the “terrorist” boys at the clinic, and Helen try to bring about change? Did these characters accomplish their goals in the end? Did Don Francisco, who forged humanitarianism with ego and ambition, achieve his true objective?

9. Saving the World suggests that there is a distinction between storytelling in our culture (the publishing business) and storytelling in our personal lives: as Alma worries about the significance of literature today—about modern publishing’s emphasis on fame and selfpromotion—she also uses Isabel’s story as a kind of mantra or guide as she navigates tricky, scary waters in her own life. How do you think the business of publishing affects the role of storytelling in our culture? What role can stories play in helping us change our own lives?

10. How would you characterize Don Francisco and Richard Huebner? Are there any similarities between them? Any glaring differences? What role does ambition play in the lives of the male characters? Does ambition take the same form for the female characters?

11. The first epigraph is taken from T. S. Eliot’s “Gerontion”: “Unnatural vices / Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues / Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.” Why do you think the author chose those particular lines from Eliot?

12. Is it possible to save the world, or do you think the title Saving the World is meant to be ironic? If you had been asked to help in selecting the title of this novel, what would you have suggested?

Weblinks

»	Author Julia Alvarez's web site
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