The novel balances the history with the storytelling as it excavates the connections among these intersecting narratives. Readers will care about these characters even as they learn such things as the segregationist practices that privileged workers from the United States ... Henríquez's smart writing starts at the choices made on a national level but it concentrates on the consequences for towns and families when the hole of the canal causes so many other losses. This absorbing novel expresses the experiences of those often overlooked by dominant narratives, and The Great Divide creatively reminds readers of a different way to ground our histories and stories.
Instead of focusing on only one character, Henriquez threads together the stories of over a dozen people whose lives are profoundly affected by the canal project. This inspired choice suits the scope of the event and hints at even more stories beyond these pages ... a collection of small narratives that together create a moving and powerful epic about the human cost of building the Panama Canal. The novel’s greatest strength is this unrelenting smallness. It insists on the importance of every human life, and illuminates the endless, ordinary, forgotten stories that underlie every pivotal moment in human history.
The depiction of white North Americans and Caribbean planters as at best clueless, more often mercenary and cruelly racist, is undoubtedly accurate. Unfortunately, and despite Henríquez’s lyrical prose, they never feel fully realized as individuals. Neither does virtuous Ada, the noble Panamanians, or Mrs. Oswald, a representative of white female victimhood who has sacrificed her intellectual ambition for a loveless marriage. Despite panoramic ambitions, the novel never quite catches fire.
The author delves deeply into themes of colonialism and labor exploitation, showing how the men take quinine daily to ward off tropical diseases while an American foreman rules over their worksite with an iron fist. Henríquez’s pitch-perfect novel has the feel of a classic.
