Liliana's Invincible Summer by Christina Rivera Garza

 

Liliana’s Invincible Summer: A Sister's Search for Justice is a powerful and unforgettable book, emotionally difficult to handle at times although nothing in it is done for shock value. It’s the true crime story of the murder at age 20 of novelist Cristina Rivera Garca’s younger sister Liliana. The murderer was identified relatively quickly, yet also never caught.

But the book is much more than a horrifying crime story. Garza is one of the most narratively sophisticated novelists working right now. The point of view shifts, the non-linear timeline, the interviews conducted with others, the use of real diary entries, and maybe most of all the impressive eye for detail, make the work read like an experimental novel that, line by line, never stops being gripping. I wanted to look away but couldn’t look away. The story is horrible, but the writer’s approach shows why that story matters, rather than cheapening it.

The book is also deeply feminist, discussing the crucial need for women to gain more control over the narratives forced onto them in an anti-feminist social and cultural environment.  Things may have changed for women in Mexico since Liliana’s death in 1990, somewhat, but not as much as they need to, and the book never shies away from showing the problems both that women faced then and still do now.

It’s maybe not quite fair to either writer, but I kept thinking of Liliana’s Invincible Summer as an antidote to Roberto Bolaño’s novel 2666, or at least the infamous long list of brutal murders that forms one of the sections of that novel. In Garza’s book, the focus is on just one murder, just one promising life destroyed by a young man’s murderous obsession.

Liliana Rivera Garza never reached her 21st year, but she lives in these pages in all her complexity, both in the ways she was just like many teenagers and young adults, and in all the ways she was unique. The pain, confusion, and anger created by her death survives in the many people who knew her who are interviewed in the book, and so does her remarkable particularity and the love that many felt and still feel for her. Liliana’s Invincible Summer features a life portrayed by a grieving sister who also happens to be one of the most daring and insightful narrative writers working today.