Lovesick is the story of Emilia Sauri, daughter of Diego,
a Mayan pharmacist, and Josefa, a Spanish beauty. She is also
a daughter of the twentieth-century, growing up at the time of
the Mexican revolution, whose ambition to become a doctor is periodically
subsumed by her volatile relationship with her childhood sweetheart
Daniel Cuenca.
This is Gabriel Garcia Marquez meets Gone With the Wind;
events tumble upon each other with belief-suspending rapidity,
the never-less-than-extraordinary qualities of the characters
– “his father had discovered Diego’s gift when
he saw the boy surreptitiously reviving a gasping fish intended
for the dinner table” – are sketched in bold relief,
and the lovers’ adolescent fervour and interminable partings
and reunions begins to be wearing. The strength of the novel is
not, in fact, in the love story, but in the sense of home which
Mastretta creates, which appears to be a lodestone for Emilia
more than is the rather trying Daniel. The relationship between
Emilia’s parents – loving and sensual but touched by
everyday irritations – is expertly conjured, as are the physical
contours of their home, “the mirrored corridor on the second
floor of La Casa de la Estrella . . . crowded with flowers and
plants and lit by an almost brutal sun”.
This is an ambitious, vigorous novel, which lacks the surreal
quality that sparks “real” magic realism, transmuting
incredible events which might other wise seem ludicrous. The endless
coincidences and verbiage of Lovesick could have been done
more deftly, but it is never less than readable, and Emilia is
a satisfyingly feisty heroine.
Reviewed by Helena Mary Smith
