The Ladies of Managua (46 page)
Read The Ladies of Managua Online
Authors: Eleni N. Gage
I'm living proof that the most fun way to learn about another culture is to marry into it. Traveling the country is a close second. But another indispensible path to getting to know a place is reading about it. The following books on Nicaragua informed this novel, and would be useful to anyone interested in the country: virtually all of Gioconda Belli's oeuvre, but especially
The Country Under My Skin
and
The Inhabited Woman;
Omar Cabeza's
Fire from the Mountain,
which outlines the bravery of the Sandinista fighters but also makes it clear how difficult it must have been to be romantically involved with a guerrilla fighter; Shirley Christian's
Nicaragua: Revolution in the Family;
and Margaret Randall's oral histories, both
Sandino's Daughters
and
Sandino's Daughters Revisited,
which were useful in illuminating the struggle of female revolutionaries. For background on New Orleans in the middle of the last century, I turned to
Legacy of a Century: Academy of the Sacred Heart in New Orleans,
which was introduced to me by Liz Manthey, who gave me and Mamina an unforgettable tour of her alma mater; and to Mary Lou Widmer's
New Orleans in the Forties,
and
New Orleans in the Fifties,
which were recommended to me by Britton Trice at the Garden District Bookshop. (Thanks, as always, to Kay Fausset, for introducing me to the people I just mentioned and to so much of that beloved city.) Obviously, any errors regarding Nicaragua or New Orleans are entirely my own.
Any book written by a parent would not be complete without a few words of gratitude for the people who watched the author's child while he or she wrote. Amal
Ã
a has been blessed with the most loving caretakers, among them Catherine Wheeler-Baco in Miami, Mar
Ã
a Jos
é
Bermudez in Granada, Jenny Zamora in Granada and New York, and Julia Ashley Simunek in New York.
I also want to thank early readers of the novel for their invaluable feedback, the ever-supportive Joan Paulson Gage and Katherine Fausset. Many thanks to Elizabeth Graves and everyone at
Martha Stewart Weddings
for the gainful, and gleeful, employment, which facilitates my expensive novel-writing habit. And my eternal gratitude belongs to St
é
phanie Abou, a revolutionary at heart (but the most glamorous one you'll ever meet), and Nichole Argyres, life partner and coparent of this, our third child together. And many thanks to Laura Chasen at St. Martin's Press and Tanya Farrell at Wunderkind PR for their invaluable help and support.
Thanks to my friends for listening patiently to way too much detail about the writing process. And to my own family for child care, literary advice, and friendly conversation. I didn't think it was possible for my parents, Nicholas and Joan Gage, to be more loving, until I had a child and our worlds multiplied. One of the lessons Mariana learns in this book is that there's no greater blessing than having multiple mothers; I knew that already thanks to Eleni Nikolaides, who helped raise me. And perhaps the greatest lack in Mariana's life is that she doesn't have a sister, or a female cousin, to provide moral (and tech!) support. Happily for me, I do. Thank you to Marina Gage, Efrosini Nikolaides, and to Efro's husband, Sy Suire, who got swept up in the joyous chaos of our own family. Finally to Amal
Ã
a, thank you for allowing me to experience firsthand the struggles and joys of motherhood, and for helping me, and the characters in the book, to understand how the latter will always outweigh the former.
Â
ELENI N. GAGE
is a journalist who writes regularly for publications including
Real Simple, Parade, Travel
+
Leisure
,
The New York Times, T: The New York Times Travel Magazine
,
Dwell, Elle, Elle D
é
cor,
and
The American Scholar.
Currently the Executive Editor at
Martha Stewart Weddings
and formerly the beauty editor at
People,
Eleni graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Folklore and Mythology from Harvard University and an MFA from Columbia University. She lives in New York City with her family. You can sign up for email updates
here
.
    
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Contents
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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE LADIES OF MANAGUA.
Copyright © 2015 by Eleni N. Gage. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Cover design by Steve Snider
Cover art by Laurie Lafrance
eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-05864-5 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-6300-2 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781466863002
First Edition: May 2015