Portrait in Sepia: A Novel
Isabel Allende has established herself as one of the most consummate of  all modern storytellers, a reputation that is confirmed in her novelPortrait  in Sepia. Allende offers a compelling saga of the turbulent history, lives,  and loves of late 19th-century Chile, drawing on characters from her earlier  novels,The House of  SpiritsandDaughter of  Fortune.In typical Allende fashion,Portrait in Sepiais crammed with love,  desire, tragedy, and dark family secrets, all played out against the dramatic  backdrop of revolutionary Chile. Our heroine Aurora del Valle's mother is a  Chilean-Chinese beauty, while her father is a dissolute scion of the wealthy and  powerful del Valle family. At the heart of Aurora's slow, painful re-creation of  her childhood towers one of Allende's greatest fictional creations, the  heroine's grandmother, Paulina del Valle. An "astute, bewigged Amazon with a  gluttonous appetite," Paulina holds both the del Valle family and Allende's  novel together as she presides over Aurora's adolescence in a haze of pastries,  taffeta, and overweening love.One of the most interesting aspects of the novel is Allende's decision to turn  her heroine into a photographer: "through photography and the written word I try  desperately to conquer the transitory nature of my existence, to trap moments  before they evanesce, to untangle the confusion of my past." There is little  confusion in Allende's elegantly crafted and hugely enjoyable novel.--Jerry  Brotton, Amazon.co.uk--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.