A Message from God in the Atomic Age

by Irene Vilar

A razor-sharp memoir about the allure of suicide for three generations of women in one Puerto Rican family, A Message from God in the Atomic Age delves into the frightening secrets that have haunted a grandmother, mother, and daughter, alternating between Vilar's notes from the psychiatric ward and her recounting of her family history. of photos.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, History, Biography, Politics, Historical, Autobiography

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Author, Publisher, Editor, Literary Agent
http://www.mvpress.org
http://www.americasforconservation.org
http://www.americaslatinoecofestival.org
http://www.gf.org/fellows/16883-irene...

"Irene Vilar is a writer of extraordinary passion, erudition, and intelligence"---Tobias Wolff
"This is another dark perfect gem from Irene Vilar. Impossible Motherhood is like a journey into a harrowing underworld but guided by Vilar's gifts and her light we emerge in the end transformed, enlightened and oh so alive."---Junot Diaz
"Stunning. A Lyrical and visionary memoir of depression, Puerto Rican identity, and young womanhood"--- Kirkus Review on "The Ladies' Gallery (starred)
"Startling, raw, and affecting, a painful exercise in which memoir as therapy becomes memoir as art"---Philadelphia Inquirer Notable Book of the Year (by Carlin Romano)

Read more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Matern...
Irene was born in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. Her memoir The Ladies’ Gallery (Other Press, 2009, originally published by Random House in 1996) was a Philadelphia Inquirer and Detroit Free Press Notable Book of the Year and was a finalist for Mind Book of the Year (UK) and the Latino Book Award. Her latest memoir, Impossible Motherhood (Other Press, 2009) won the 2010 IPPY gold medal for best memoir/autobiography and the Latino Book Award for women issues. Both memoirs explore generational and national trauma. Irene’s work has been featured on NPR’s Fresh Air, CBS-NYC, PBS-Boston, Vogue magazine, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, New York Times Magazine, and on the cover of the New York Times art section. Her books have been translated to German (Aufbau Verlag 1998 & Hoffmann und Campe 2011), French (Balland 2010), Italian (Corbaccio 2010) and Spanish (Lengua de Trapo, Madrid/Buenos Aires 2012). Abroad Irene’s work has been featured in Elle (UK) Vanity Fair (Italy), Liberation (France), Grazia (France, UK, Australia), Marie Claire (Italy), Madison (Australia), Republica/Tempo/Gazzetta del Sud/ (Italy) and on the covers of Tempi Magazine (Italy) and Irish Independent Sunday Magazine (Ireland). See: http://www.irenevilar.com/media/

Vilar was book series editor editor for Women and Jewish Studies at Syracuse University Press and from 2002 to 2005 served as founder and series editor of The Americas book series published by the University of Wisconsin Press. Currently she is series editor of The Americas at Texas Tech University Press. The series has published over forty books in translation in the last ten years being among the most important initiatives of this kind in the US (along with Dalkey, New Directions, Archipielago).

Vilar is literary agent for Vilar Creative Agency, and co-agent in the U.S. for Ray-Gude Mertin Literary Agency, an agency specializing in Spanish, Latin American, and Portuguese authors representing such notable writers as Nobel Prize-winner Jose Saramago.

A 2010 Guggenheim Fellow Vilar is also a participant of the Oxford Union Debate Society, being the first Puerto Rican to be invited to the prestigious union.

Reviews

[Giovanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Little known book about the coming of age of a Puerto Rican girl with the unimaginable legacy of being the grandaughter to the rebel/martyr/terrorist (depending on who you ask)Lolita Lebron, who was imprisoned for opening fire inside the U.S. House of Representatives in the name of the Puerto Rican independence movement. This is a complex, beautifully written memoir which gives some background to the Puerto Rico of the 1940's and 50's and the independence movement (although not as much as some would like), but also dwelves into the realm of depression, mental illness, and conflicting relations with parental figures.

[Nicki · Rating 5 out of 5]

This memoir is so much more than the regular memoir. It’s the modern history of Puerto Rico, the divided cultures between the farmers and the newer urbanites, family trauma— Irene Vilar puts it in a chaotic storm that swings you through a tunnel of ideology, pain, mental illness, sex, and the story of three generations of women.

It’s hard to explain this book. It’s so much yet Vilar gives you spoonfuls after spoonfuls. Her writing flows and has a subtle poetic chime to it. I truly can’t categorize this book outside of memoir, but I feel like memoir isn’t enough.

I would recommend it for those wanting to see the background of political heros, mental illness, culture clashes, or just a book about life.

[Gina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Irene Vilar’s first memoir tells the story of her grandmother (famed Puerto Rican nationalist Lolita Lebrón) and her mother (Gladys Méndez, who died by suicide) as she examines her own coming-of-age and suicide attempts, which culminated with a stay at a psychiatric ward during her college years.

I felt like Vilar, despite plunging into her personal story, was distant throughout this work—I missed some deeper insight into who she was, this woman who had been born from so much trauma, yet held herself at a cool remove.

In her next memoir Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict (published in 2009, and which I have yet to read), she discusses how she had 15 abortions over the course of 15 years, and further suicide attempts. She examines the racist history of testing experimental drugs on Puerto Rican women and sterilizing them. She also reveals that this first memoir was written under the influence of her much older first husband, a Syracuse University professor whom she calls “the master.”

That so much was not shared in this first memoir due to outside (and internalized) restraints brings up the question of how “free” we truly are when we’re writing. The larger questions of truth and authenticity are there, but I feel they must be examined by looking out from “A Message from God” at the larger circumstances that influenced Vilar’s writing. I finished this memoir with so many questions unanswered. One of them was, what lies beneath all this?

Historical note: Irene Vilar is the granddaughter of Lolita Lebrón, a Puerto Rican nationalist who joined three others in attacking the U.S. House of Representatives on March 1, 1954. Reading this memoir was the first time I heard of Lolita, who died at 90 years old in Puerto Rico in 1990, having been pardoned by President Jimmy Carter after serving 27 years of a 57-year prison sentence.

[Annouchka · Rating 4 out of 5]

i want to hug this book!

[Rachel]

I can't seem to finish this, so I'm setting it down for now.

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a fan... I wasn't impressed and the flow was poor. There was the potential but it fell short imop.

[Nancy Zigler · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not counting this one... I'm finished in the sense that I gave up! Beautiful writing, triggering for me though. Had to call it day!