The Delivery by Margarita Garcia Robayo

Columbian fiction

Original title – La Encomienda

Translator – Megan McDowell

Source – Review copy

I was lucky to get sent this by Charco press there have been bring some tremendous Latin American fiction the last few years and this is the second book I have read by the Columbian writer Margarita Garcia Robayo I read Holiday heart and loved it. She has written for a couple of newspapers in Columbia and Argentina she was also director of the Tomas Eloy Martinez Foundation (A writer I loved when he was alive). She has written four novels and number of short story collections. I read this and it remind me of a song I loved by Velvet Underground The Gift saw a boyfriend decided aft er a long sepration and longing to be with his girlfriend post himself to her. This ism a story about a woman that has escpaed her past and she thought her mother as well.

A few years ago, I went back to my country to renew my passport. My sister invited me to stay at her house with her family. Since she and her husband worked and the kid – back then it was just the one – went to day care, I was home alone a lot. They gave me my nephew’s room, and I slept in a low little bed with Power Rangers sheets, and I had to bend over a little to look at myself in the closet mirror. Then I would go to the dining room, make some tea and sit down to write. Sometimes I took breaks to nose around. I didn’t find much that was remarkable; my sister is an obvious person. Her only secret was a photograph of our father hidden in her closet. I’d seen that photo before – when I moved away from the country, she told me I could take it if I wanted.’No, thanks, you’ll take better care of it, I told her. So why was it a secret, then?

She had come home once but it felt odd.

 

The delivery has a narrator  that tells us early on that she had left her homeland. never mention where  but a latin american country .She had tired to be a writer and failed then left snd she has a freelance job currently working ion a piece about a cow .it isn’t what she dreamed for her life and this is ashown in her attitude to others around her. But she is settled but her life is maybe empty and there is a feeling of a woman hs broken free but then hit a wall on whart to do. Her only connection to the past life is a conversation via the internet and letters with her sister. But when she  learns her sister is off for a long break and days after there is a large box delievered to her house she leaes this box eventually bring it in and opening it up and she discovers it has her mother. Now this is a mother that is one of those overbearing take charge types it immediately becomes so clear why she had to get so far away from her as she takes over the runnning of the house. As the past and present collitde this is a book that follows a few days after shegets the parcel and the finds out it had her mother in it and then facing ones own past and the mistakes that happened.

‘It was delivered almost two days ago, and it’s still sitting out here?’

The weight of the box is too much for me.

“Can you help me, Máximo, please? It’s really heavy.

Máximo snorts. He slides in on one side between the box and the wall and grabs it long-ways with his arms outstretched. He says ‘excuse me’ but still pushes me with his body, which is bulky like a bulldozer, and he half-drags, half-lifts the box inside and drops it onto the sofa, sideways.

What is this?’ I ask.

Máximo snorts again. He takes a handkerchief out of his trouser pocket and wipes his sweaty face. He mutters on his way out and slams the door behind him.

The box waited days how was the mother still alive ? I do wonder this

I said it vaguely remind me of the giftas is the mother there I asked my self left for days in the box then she appears ? I do wonder if that is what happens or if ther fact her sister is going on a cruise made her think this is what may happen. I also thought of the end of the The gift by Velvet Underground were the boyfriend is stabbed is this what hapened here it isn’t mentioned but I just wonder is the mother there or her spirit at times. In a sort of surreal idea not unlike FIaght club where the Brad Pitt character is just imagined and maybe she needed a character and that character is her mother as she is maybe smothering and as I said one of these take over mothers.For me a book about families but also about the sort of cautionary tale of how when we get to the othe side of the fence irt isn’t always as green as it seemed when we were at home. I liked this book it isabout family and also about loneliness and loss.

Winstons score – A solid tale of a daughter that tried to escape her mother and maybe lost something more.