BKMT READING GUIDES
The Road from La Cueva
by Sheila Ortego
Hardcover : 144 pages
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Introduction
Ana Howland is at a crisis point. As a constrained yet passionate woman, she finds few outlets for her desires in her role as mother and wife. She is subsumed by a controlling husband, but is craving her own fulfillment. Her frustrations find outlets through a friendship with an eccentric neighbor and an affair with a man who respects her and nurtures her spirit and independence. Through hardship and grim determination, she learns to look with her own eyes, to feel with her own heart. She discovers a deep well of resilience and compassion, with room for growth and freedom. Her story is one of a leap of faith, away from despair and toward life at its fullest. Despite all odds, she navigates herself, through small but profound changes, into new ways of living, of relating to her friends, her daughter, herself.
Excerpt
THE ROAD FROM LA CUEVAA Novel
1
Ana’s shift at St. Joseph’s had ended. The road ahead was a familiar ordeal. At La Cueva, thirty miles from town, the battered cattle gate came into view, chained and padlocked on its cedar post. A late November snow had come, turning the road to muck. She had to get out to open the gate, slogging ankle-deep in calíche, then back to the Wagoneer to drive through, and out again, to shut it. It would be a hard drive to get through the ditches carved in the road and up the slippery hills. The last stretch was a bog full of boulders, curved and slick as turtlebacks. She was grateful her daughter Emmy was at home with Frank. If not for that, there would have been the worry of sending the Wagon into a slide, of crushing it to a coffin of twisted steel. ...
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Discussion Questions
1) Why does Ana wait so long to leave Frank?2) What role does Margaret play in helping Ana grow?
3) What is the book's message about the issue of 'honesty'?
Notes From the Author to the Bookclub
The central idea of the book is the struggle for the survival of a woman's spirit, as experienced by the protagonist, Ana. The idea that sparked my imagination was the notion that when a woman lives in poverty on a bad road and is struggling to 'drive straight' and not get stuck, this is a metaphor for life itself, especially if the woman is also 'stuck' in a bad relationship and doesn't know how to navigate her life properly, how to self-actualize and find personal fulfillment. I want readers to come away with the sense that through persistence, a focus on 'the higher good' and on healthy love relationships, any woman can not only survive, but thrive.Book Club Recommendations
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