Souls in the Mist

<p><em>Souls in the Mist: A tale I lived</em> is a novel where the people places and customs portrayed represent the<br />life of a rural community in Mexico in the time leading up to the Day of the Dead celebration.</p><p>The common thread of the story is an old woman who as she goes from her house to the market the<br />Church or cemetery during these festivity days is encountering various inhabitants of the village.</p><p>As she and the rest of her neighbors are doing various tasks specifi c to those days she is narrating her<br />life and sharing her thoughts and memories from the town’s old days and whenever she encounters<br />someone in the village she “takes us by the hand” to the inside of that person’s story.</p><p>The traditions associated with these festivities lend a magical aura to the plot of the novel as the living<br />characters seem not only to reminisce but also to interact with the souls of the deceased. The reader<br />hears the voices of the villagers and in their manner of speaking becomes witness to the town’s deepest<br />soul. Its tone takes a page from the style of Magic Realism made famous by Gabriel García-Marquez’s<br /><em>One Hundred Years of Solitude Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo </em>or Laura Esquivel’s<em> Like Water for Chocolate.</em></p>