The Great Divide / Cristina Henriquez / 2024

The Great Divide / Cristina Henriquez / 2024

The Great Divide is a sweeping novel on the building of the Panama Canal. It tracks a fisherman and his estranged son who is building the canal against his wishes, a woman fighting against the displacement of her community, a Yankee doctor fighting malaria and the adolescent from Barbados who works as his help, as well as a slave driving Yankee working men to death in the canal. The novel opens gently and builds steadily. Before you know it, you’re enrapt in the drama of characters' lives, surprised by their various connections, and all under the steady hand of the author, who writes with a very clean craft that follows the rules of the genre without stifling any of the magic or inspiration. I read the book as a way of learning more about Central American history while touching grass instead of reading yet another lost in the sauce history book. It fulfilled that purpose and then some. 4.5/5