Herminia Menez Reviews 2 Short Story Collections by Cecilia Brainard

 

Review by Halo-Halo Review, reprinted with permission

WOMAN WITH HORNS AND OTHER STORIES by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

(U.S. Edition PALH 2020, New Day 1987) 

and 

ACAPULCO AT SUNSET AND OTHER STORIES by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

(U.S. Edition PALH 2020, Anvil 1995)

 

BOOKS' LINK

In her debut collection of short stories, WOMAN WITH HORNS, Cecilia Manguerra Brainard launches her mythical Ubec (Cebu) – a historic, cosmopolitan and vibrant city – the setting of many of her short stories, as well as her most recent novel, THE NEWSPAPER WIDOW. 

Ubec is home to the historical figure Lapu-Lapu, portrayed in “1521” not in his role as the legendary defender of the island against Spanish conquistadors but as a new father engulfed with joy at the birth of his first son, only to lose him, soon after, to enemy fire.

In “Black Man in the Forest,” as in “1521,” war serves as the necessary background for highlighting the complex emotional drama that is at the core of the narrative. The Philippine American War situates General Gregorio in a forest, where he has fled with a few of his men to escape the Americans. Confronted by a “black man,” he is wounded in the leg and he fires back, killing the American soldier with his last bullets. In the aftermath, the general reflects on his victim’s death, and with great compassion gives the stranger a river-funeral, saving him from the predation of one of his men, the cannibalistic Liver-Eater.

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