Spanish edition cover
Violeta is a 2022 novel by Isabel Allende.Set in Chile, Violeta tells the story of Violeta Del Valle, who herself is telling her life story to her grandson Camilo, whom she has raised since he was a child, from its beginning during The Spanish Flu to the modern-day COVID-19 Pandemic.
Tropes present in this novel:
- Chekhov's Gift: The Del Valle family offer Torito, their intellectually disabled handyman, his first birthday party. As a gift, Violeta gives him a wooden cross necklace with her name on it. Decades later, she sees the necklace again when she is with a group of women allowed to view the personal belongings of "disappeared" peasants whose remains have been found. It confirms Torito was among the executed men.
- Continuity Nod: A throwaway sentence about Violeta's father, Arsenio Del Valle indicates that his mother Nívea was decapitated in a strange accident and that his sister (unnamed in Violeta) was clairvoyant. The clairvoyant Clara Del Valle is one of the main characters in The House of the Spirits, which also features her mother Nívea.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Miss Taylor was an orphan in Ireland who was put to work in the infamous Magdalene laundries in the hopes of being adopted. At 12, deemed too old for adoption, she is sent to work as a servant to a married man who rapes and abuses her. Fortunately for her, when she's 17 the man's wife finds out and sends her away to work for her mother, who trains Miss Taylor to speak and act like a proper English young lady, suitable to be her companion. After the woman dies, Miss Taylor eventually makes her way down to Chile.
- Death by Childbirth: Nieves, Violeta's daughter, reports to the hospital after her water breaks, complaining of a strong headache. Her blood pressure spikes and she goes into convulsions. Only a C-section manages to save her baby, but nothing can be done to save her.
- Disneyland Dad: Violeta's estranged husband, Julián, is a neglectful parent towards his son. However, he is a Type II example with his daughter Nieves. When she is 14, she starts spending class breaks with him in Las Vegas instead of in Chile with her mom. He teaches her to drive a car and serve as copilot to him. When he catches her smoking, he provides her with menthols. He lets her wear overly sexy clothes to go with her dad to go gambling at casinos. He does drive away any male attention she gathers, to her chagrin.
- Driven to Suicide: One year after the Great Depression begins, the Del Valle family loses its fortune and its home and Arsenio receives a warrant or his arrest. The next day, Violeta brings coffee to her dad and finds him dead from a self-inflicted gunshot.
- Finally Found the Body: A priest hears a confession and he uses the information to track down a cave where the bodies of peasants executed by the military have been hidden. Torito, who had gone with Juan Martín to help him escape, was among the deceased.
- Harmless Lady Disguise: After the 1973 military coup, Violeta's son is wanted and has to go into hiding. Violeta manages to get false documents for him, including travel documents under the name of "Lorena Benítez". She eventually locates where her Juan Martín is hiding, clean-shaven, wearing a dress and prepared to pass for "Lorena".
- Hide Your Gays: Miss Taylor and Teresa Rivas. It is explicitly mentioned that during that time in particular (Chile in the 1940s) only artists or the wealthy could have a same-sex relationship, the former because they don't care about society's rules, and the latter because they are very discreet.
- Incompatible Orientation: Violeta's brother José Antonio and Miss Taylor, her tutor. Thirty years after she rejects his marriage proposal, he still carries around the engagement ring.
- Law of Inverse Fertility: Violeta and her first husband Fabian struggle to conceive. For greater irony, he is a pioneer in their country in the use of artificial insemination for livestock. He even mentions to her in passing that Queen Joan of Portugal gave birth to her daughter through artificial insemination in 1462.
- No Sparks: Before marrying Fabian, Violeta finds him boring and predictable and says that she knows exactly what he will be like 20 years from today. Her marriage is fine. Then Julián Bravo turns up and "fine" is not good enough anymore.
- Old Man Marrying a Child: Abel and Lucinda Rivas have young Violeta accompany them as they make the rounds as visiting teachers. When Violeta is 14, the indigenous village chief proposes to have her marry him or one of his sons to seal their friendship and even offers a horse in exchange. As diplomatically as possible, Abel rejects the offer, saying that Violeta is one of his wives and that she has a terrible character. Afterwards, Violeta stops joining the Rivas in that part of their rounds.
- Pushover Parents: Violeta blames herself for being one towards Nieves and standing by while Julian spoiled her rotten.
- Raised by Grandparents: After Violeta's daughter Nieves dies, she ends up raising Nieves's son, Camilo.
- Shed the Family Name: José Antonio Del Valle registers a partnership with Marko and puts his name down as Delvalle. This is his way of cutting his association with the past and with the shame brought on by his father's loss of fortune and fraudulent business.
- Suicide is Shameful: After Arsenio del Valle is found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot, his son Juan Antonio and Miss Taylor hide the entry wound with a sleeping cap. The family doctor who writes up the certificate of death enters that he died of a heart attack so that Arsenio can be buried in the Catholic cemetery instead of the municipal one.
- Trauma Conga Line:
- Miss Taylor. She starts out as an orphan at one of Ireland's Magdalene Laundries, and later goes to work for a man who rapes her until his wife puts an end to the situation. In Chile, she endures surgery for a she that leaves her infertile. Finally, She loses her lover to cancer.
- As a centenarian Violeta has had her share of suffering: the Death of a Child, Julián Bravo's abuse, her son and Torito going missing (Juan Martin ends up OK; Torito does not), and the loss of other loved ones.
