I found The Great Divide, by Cristina Henriquez, on a short list of most anticipated novels of 2024. I don’t like to get shut out when a book gets this much buzz; then there’s the added draw of an unusual setting. The U.S. doesn’t see a lot of fiction published that’s set primarily in Panama during the early 1900s, and so that sealed it. My thanks go to NetGalley and Harper Collins for the review copies, both audio and digital. This story lives up to the hype, and I recommend it to you.

I am not so sure about it at the outset. There is a robust quantity of characters that are important to the story, and each of them is given a brief chapter all to themselves. I wonder whether they will ever intersect, or if this will turn out to be a collection of short stories, but before much longer, characters are meeting other characters. They don’t all end up together in the end, but we can see the ties that have formed. There are a lot of people to keep track of, and for me, having both the print version and the audio is tremendously helpful. Robin Miles narrates in a way that is natural and fluid, and I don’t notice much of what is around me when I listen to her. But once in awhile a character is mentioned and I draw a blank; here is where the Kindle version is essential, because I highlight the names of each of the characters, and this enables me to instantly flip back to where they were introduced to us without having to stop listening. Eventually, of course, I no longer need to do so, but knowing that I can makes for stress-free reading.

I am engaged with these characters, each of whom feels real to me, and I groan when I see them get into trouble, and sigh with relief once they are in the clear again. The ones that I care about most are a father and son that are estranged from each other, neither wanting to stay that way, yet both of them incorrectly interpreting the silence of the other. As we reach the climax, I can tell there are three ways for this situation to resolve: they can reconcile; one of them can die; or the son can decide to follow another character back to the U.S.A. without reconnecting with his dad.  It only now occurs to me that there was a fourth possibility, which was to leave them still estranged at the end; but by this time, Henriquez had shown herself to be a better writer than that, and while I won’t tell you how they wound up, I will say that she didn’t leave her readers dangling.

Because this is an intricately woven tale with a lot of equally important characters, I’m not including any quotes, but I will say that Henriquez is a talented writer, and anyone that loves good historical fiction should get this book and read it. This applies even more so to those interested in Latin American history and the building of the canal. I hadn’t read her work before, but she’s on my radar now, and I look forward to seeing what she writes next.