Fruit of the Drunken Tree is the debut novel of Colombian-American author Ingrid Rojas Contreras, known for her essays and short stories which have been published in The New York Times Magazine, The LA Times Review of Books, Guernica, and others. The novel’s autobiographically-inspired plot takes place in the author’s hometown of Bogotá, and it traces the friendship of the young Chula Santiago with her family’s guerrilla-entangled maid, Petrona Sanchez. Petrona is coerced into abetting the attempted kidnapping of Chula and her sister, but she ultimately sabotages the operation in order to protect the Santiagos. Fruit of the Drunken Tree was first published in July 2018. This guide references the May 2019 Anchor Books paperback edition. Pagination may differ in the hardback or eBook editions of the text.

The novel, a dual coming-of-age story, has been described as a Bildungsroman, a nineteenth-century term for works of literary fiction that chronicle the formation of a protagonist’s world view as he or she matures from childhood into young adulthood. Rojas Contreras’s rich prose and vivid detail have inspired critics to compare her work to that of Latin American magical realists like Isabel Allende and Gabriel García Márquez. The comparison is imperfect, however: Though Rojas Contreras alludes to the supernatural, the novel is far more realist than magical. Other critics have described the work as “domestic fiction,” though the novel subverts expectations of this subgenre by deliberately eschewing moralization. Rojas Contreras has expressed her intention to amplify the unheard voices of figures like Petrona, who are unwilling, coerced participants in violence.

The novel received the California Book Awards Silver Medal in First Fiction and was a New York Times Editor’s Choice.

Plot Summary

The action unfolds around the late 1980s and early 1990s—a period of dire unrest in the decades-long Colombian national conflict. This time period marks the rise of Pablo Escobar and drug cartels intensified the ongoing violence between the federal government, communist guerrilla groups, right-wing paramilitary groups. In the Author’s Note at the end of the novel, Rojas Contreras explains that although the events referenced in the novel traverse a five-year historical timeline from 1989 (the year of the assassination of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán) to 1994 (the year of the immediate aftermath of the manhunt and killing of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar), the novel’s dramatic arc “compresse[s]” those events into to an approximately two-year window in order to accommodate “the emotional timeline of the book” (304).

The novel is narrated in the alternating first-person voices of Chula and Petrona. Chula is seven years old at the start of the story, when her mother, Alma Santiago (Mamá), hires the 13-year-old Petrona to work as a full-time maid in their home in an urban gated community. Petrona lives in an invasión called the Hills—one of many improvised neighborhoods settled by destitute Colombians displaced by the violent national conflict. Mamá, whose character is closely based on the author’s mother, was also raised in poverty in an invasión; Mamá wants to hire a maid who resembles her younger self whom she can foster almost like a daughter. Chula and her older sister Cassandra live a protected life full of joyful girlhood mischief and play, absorbing the violence of the national conflict through snippets of television and radio news broadcasts which permeate the novel and establish specific historical context for the action. Chula becomes enthralled with Petrona’s mysterious taciturn nature.

When Petrona’s little brother, Ramón, is killed after secretly joining the local guerrilla group, Petrona meets and falls in love with Gorrión, a young Black man with ties to the guerrillas. As the eldest daughter, Petrona is her family’s breadwinner, and in spite of her moral qualms, she begins passing information for local criminal groups to earn enough money to support her mother and siblings. Petrona grows closer to the Santiagos, who welcome her into their home after Petrona’s mother, furious over Petrona’s relationship with Gorrión, banishes her from home.

Gorrión pressures Petrona into taking advantage of the Santiagos, and Petrona facilitates an attempted kidnapping of Chula and Cassandra. Stricken with a guilty conscience, Petrona sabotages the abduction at the last minute and helps Chula escape safely home. Mamá cannot forgive Petrona for her betrayal, and she fires her. Petrona is then abducted by the guerrillas whose operation she ruined. As punishment for betraying the group, she is drugged, raped, and left for dead, suffering from amnesia. After the foiled kidnapping attempt, Chula’s father, Antonio Santiago (Papá), is kidnapped by guerrillas who had infiltrated his workplace. His captors blackmail Mamá, who decides to flee the country and seek asylum in the United States. Chula, Cassandra, and Mamá settle in Los Angeles. More than six years later, Papá is released from captivity and joins the family in the U.S. Petrona, meanwhile, gradually recovers her memory. She was impregnated during her assault, and she raises the child with Gorrión, whom she marries. Having lost all love and trust for Gorrión, whom she knows betrayed her to the guerrillas, she plans to escape with her son and start a new life.