RaveThe New York Times Book ReviewAs in a good Tagalog movie, twists abound in Mia Alvar’s debut collection. But Alvar’s finely wrought shocks, delivered in exacting prose, reverberate without easy resolution ... Alvar’s incursion into Filipino politics recalls Jessica Hagedorn’s novel Dogeaters, and Miguel Syjuco’s Ilustrado. But stylistically, Alvar’s elegant examination of the political wife is reminiscent of the long-suffering spouses and familial enablers of political men in Nadine Gordimer’s fiction ... After the earlier stories’ gripping tension, the muted pace of the novella 'In the Country,' told through date-stamped vignettes, is initially jarring, then thoroughly heartbreaking.
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