Gina Apostol

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La Tercera

In her first novel since Insurrecto, Gina Apostol assembles a vision of Philippine history from the 19th century to present day in the fragmented story of the Delgados, a family surviving across generations of colonization, catastrophe, and war.

Rosario, a Filipina novelist in New York City, has just learned of her mothers death in the Philippines. Instead of rushing home, she puts off her return by embarking on a remote investigation into her familys history and her mothers supposed inheritance, a place called La Tercera, which may or may not exist. Rosario catalogs generations of Delgado family bequests and maps of uncertain purpose, rusted chicken coops, a secret journal, the words to songs sung at the family home during visits from Imelda Marcos.

Each life Rosario explores opens onto an array of other lives and raises a multitude of new questions. But as the search for La Tercera becomes increasingly labyrinthine, Rosarios mother and the entire Delgado family emerge in all their dizzying traitors and heroes, reactionaries and revolutionaries. Meanwhile, another narrative takes shapeof the countrys erased history of exploitation and slaughter at the hands of American occupying forces.

La Tercera is Gina Apostols most ambitious, personal, and encompassing a story about what seems impossiblecapturing the truth of the pastand the terrible cost to a family, or a country, that fails to try.