ISBN: 0-88739-517-1
pp. 166
Size: 5 x 7
Pub Date: 09/2003
Paperback Original
Price: $13.95
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A Pattern of Silent Tears
Mariana Ruybalid
Mariana Ruybalid's story of friendship follows the lives of Magdalena, a divorced mother of three and Marta, an American missionary stricken with cerebral palsy. Following a personal calling to seek and serve neglected children with physical disabilities, Marta becomes friends with Magdalena, who helps her improve her Spanish. Both women face questions of belonging as Magdalena faces a second divorce, an uneasy attraction to a fellow parishioner, and a shattering aftermath to passion that provides no easy answers.
Review: "Ruybalid tells a heartfelt story of a Costa Rican Mother's struggle to survive in a country among people reluctant to give up suffocating traditions of male oppression and strict interpretation of religious doctrine."
--Denise Sherer Jacobson, author of The Question of David
"How deeply I feel for this passionate modern woman, caught in a traditional society! Dona Magdelena raises three children in luscious Coast Rica and wonders?as she deals with an ill mother, a disabled friend, poverty, and an absent, abusive husband--whether her religion supports her as well as it could. She's yearning for love, too, at the same time that she aspires to a viable spiritual life. Sound familiar? The honest, succinct writing is one reason this tale is so memorable, another is that?as much as any writer in these times--Mariana Ruybalid has been there."
--Clive Matson, author of Squish Boots and Let the Crazy Child Write
Bio: Mariana Ruybalid has been a member of the Berkeley Disabled Community since 1976. A graduate of Oakland?s Skyline High School and Holy Names College, she has degrees in mathematics and philosophy and three master's degrees. Mariana spent six years working as a Psychologist with women and children with disabilities in Costa Rica and speaks fluent Spanish. Ruybalid has published poetry in Kaleidoscope, International Magazine of Literature, Fine Arts, and Disability, and POETALK. She was born Denver, Colorado.
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