Literature / Keep Her Contained

Keep Her Contained is a 2012 crime novel by award-winning Newsday journalist Oscar Corral. It is based on the real life murder of Reyna Anjelica Marroquin, a Salvadorian immigrant who arrived in New York in 1965 to start a new life. Her mummified corpse was found inside a barrel in the basement of a Jericho house in 1999, which prompted a massive investigation into who her killer was, their motive, and the kind of life she lived shortly after her arrival in Manhattan. Each chapter in the book alternates between Corral's point of view in 1999 while investigating Marroquin's murder, and Reyna's point of view in El Salvador and the US in the late 60s.

Due to the massive amount of intimate details that are of questionably authenticity (such as chapters that are meant to be from Reyna's POV), nearly all the characters have undergone a name change.

• Oscar Corral (Michael Cervantes)
• Reyna Anjelica Marroquin (Karina Anjelica Fuentes)
• Howard Elkins (George Talbot)
• Det. Sgt. Brian Parpan (Roger Connery)
• Det. Robert Edwards (Daniel Poppel)
• Catalina Fernandez (Kathy Andrade)

Since the book describes a real-life murder case (characters' names nonwithstanding), all spoilers are unmarked.

Book contains examples of:

• Anguished Declaration of Love: Over the phone, Karina tearfully declares her love for George in response to his death threat. Karina lives out her final moments heartbroken and in terror that the man who once loved her now wants to kill her.
• Artistic License – History: Since the book is only semi-biographical, a lot of liberties were taken on the facts.
  • When the real-life Reyna Marroquin arrived to Manhattan she attended a fashion school, as mentioned by her friend Kathy Andrade (who's Catalina Fernandez in the book). In the book, there's no mention of this.
  • A good part of Karina's early years in New York were spent working for a pimp. There's no known record of Reyna having worked for one in real life.
  • In the book, the elderly Talbot goes into a rage with the detectives and even forces them out of his house. The real-life Elkins, while standoffish and dishonest, was at least civil.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Hector Elias, the town's talented sculptor, is perhaps the only man to treat Karina like a human being and not like a sex object. He appreciates her beauty in an artistic way, and not in a perverted way. Karina tries to get him to marry her so she can get away from Carlos. Alas, he's not the least bit enticed because, as he reveals to Karina, he's gay.
• Bittersweet Ending: Karina is bludgeoned to death by Talbot, is left to wither away in steel drum for thirty years, and her family back in El Salvador are intially unaware of what's happened. On the bright side, she's discovered years later and detectives corner Talbot, who takes the Coward's way out. The cap on this trope is when Cervantes/Corral (this very book's author) travels to Tonacatepeque to inform Karina's/Reyna's family of her fate.
• Blatant Lies: The police who arrive to Karina's house after her father's murder suggest that she provide them with a list of names of everyone who was a part of her father's socialist group so they can pinpoint a suspect. Karina and her remaining family know this is bullshit, and refuse to divulge any names.
• Body in a Breadbox: Karina's withered corpse is found folded in a decades-old chemical drum.
• Boom, Headshot!: How Talbot offs himself at the end when he realizes that he's been caught for Karina's murder.
• But Not Too Black: Karina's hometown Tonacatepeque has a large Indigenous population, which includes mestizos^note  Someone of Indigenous and European descent . It's pointed out in earlier chapters that lighter-skinned mestizos are considered far more attractive than dark-skinned mestizos. While not explicitly stated, Karina's status as the most beautiful woman in Tonacatepeque is heavily implied to be the result of her having some visible European features that she may have inherited from her white Spaniard grandfather, overlapping her darker indigenous colour scheme.
• Captain Ersatz: Nearly every major character was subjected to a name change in the book (including the author). Averted with Ronald Cohen, the man who discovered Reyna's corpse, who kept his real name. Zigzagged in some chapters that alternate between using "Karina" and Reyna's real name.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: Racism and sexism were rampant, especially in the 60s. While the chapters depicting the late 90s show a slight improvement, there are still obvious hints of it. Det. Sgt. Connery balking at an interracial couple at an Irish bar, and Cervantes' boss describing Salvadorans as backwards people are just the tip of the iceberg.
• Domestic Abuse: Karina experiences during her short marriage to her cousin, Carlos. She puts up with this for as long as he is able to continue providing financial support to her family. Eventually, she gives up on this arrangement, deciding to take her chances in America instead.
• Dramatic Irony: Karina left El Salvador to get away from her husband who had an affair with another woman whom he also got pregnant. In America, she finds herself as the "other woman" in an affair with her married boss. She pays dearly for this.
• Dude Magnet: Karina attracts plenty of men (including her cousin), all who are only interested in getting into her pants, much to her annoyance. This becomes a dangerous thing when she reaches Manhattan and falls into the hands of a pimp, and outright fatal when she catches Talbot's eye.
• Entitled to Have You: Ronald Bauer, the factory supervisor, views Karina's affair with their boss Talbot as a sign of her being "easy", and tries to force himself on her. Talbot sets out to give Bauer a beating, but unfortunately, the latter escapes in time. Fortunately, he's fired, and his position is given to Karina.
• Ethnic Menial Labour: Justified with Karina and her friends, who were all recent Hispanic female immigrants in the 60s, and therefore the only job options available to them ranged from live-in nanny, waitress, prostitute, and factory worker among others. Likewise, most of the women working at Melrose Plastics are African, Hispanic, and Eastern European.
• Foregone Conclusion: Since Karina Fuentes is a renamed Reyna Marroquin, she dies at the end. George Talbot's (Howard Elkins') attempt to hide his crime will ultimately fail 30 years later, and he will commit suicide to avoid going on trial.
• Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Karina is shocked at Talbot's insistence that she abort her pregnancy, and refuses both on moral and religious grounds^note  Of course this being 1969, abortion was still illegal, as Roe vs Wade wouldn't pass for another four years
• Has a Type: Karina has a liking for men with lots of chest hair.
• Honey Trap: Karina's Cuban lover Tomas introduces himself to her father as an associate of Fidel Castro sent over to help with El Salvador's socialist movement. Much later it's revealed that he's actually CIA plant sent over to stop the spread of socialism by assasinating its leaders. He tries seducing Karina for the sole purpose of obtaining the list naming a bunch of socialist sympathizers, albeit unsuccessfully, forcing him to resort to anonymous death threats.
• Ironic Nickname: Zorro^note  Spanish for "fox". The name originated in Mexican folk tales of a noble bandit who fought on behalf of the peasantry and indigenous peoples , Karina's Puerto Rican employer (read: pimp). He's sly, but he's most definitely not a defender of the working-class. Rather, he takes advantage of working-class immigrant women (especially Afro-Caribbean women) by playing on their vulnerability and desires to make it in America.
• Killed Offscreen: Or rather, off-page. Karina's final chapter ends with her waiting for Catalina to come help her before Talbot comes to kill her. Her murder isn't shown, ^note  It's still ambiguous as to whether Reyna Marroquin was killed in her apartment or at the factory. instead skipping to the detective interrogation thirty years later.
• Missing White Woman Syndrome: The detectives at the NYPD are accused of placing a low priority on Karina Fuentes' murder simply because she was a Latina immigrant, and not one of their wealthy white women. On the contrary, Connery and Poppel put all their efforts into solving Karina's murder. However, this was heavily implied to be the case back in 1969 when a female officer brushes off Kathy Andrade's concerns over Karina's disappearance when she learns that the latter was a pregnant immigrant.
• Race Fetish: Connery accuses the elderly George Talbot if this when he sees a young Latina maid at his house while interrogating him. The remark makes Talbot visibly uncomfortable, which to Connery, emphasized Talbot's role in Karina's murder.
• So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Reyna was a highly intelligent, well-educated girl back in her village (in stark contrast to the poorer villagers). However, her intelligence was frequently overshadowed by her beauty, to the point of being a perpetual target for sexual harassment (and Attempted Rape). It even earned her the scorn of her first employer in Manhattan, who had her sleep in the garage out of fear that Karina might woo her husband, and was still stingy about it thirty years later.
• Spicy Latina: Every Latina female in the 1960s flashbacks, save for Karina.
• Taking Up the Mantle: Subverted. Karina tries taking over as leader for the her murdered father's socialist party, but is ultimately unable to, partly because his supporters are afraid of political reprisal, and partly because they're more interested in scoring with Karina.
• Token Minority: The Cuban-American Michael Cervantes was one of the very few Latino journalists working at Newsday, which was why he was frequently sent to cover stories all over Latin America, ranging from natural disasters to political unrest. It was also why he was assigned to investigate Karina Fuentes' murder case, and ultimately become the one to go to El Salvador to break the news to her family.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Carlos starts out as a Dogged Nice Guy with a hopeless crush on his cousin Karina, and easily became a puppet in her hands. After Karina agrees to marry him, his true colours emerge and instantly becomes a feared domestic abuser who Karina tries to get away from. He cheats on her too.
• Woman Scorned: Karina becomes this late into her pregnancy when she realizes that George Tibot never had any intention of divorcing his wife for her. She undergoes a minor Sanity Slippage, calling Judith Talbot to tell her about the affair.