Book Review: Evita and Me by Erika Rummel
Review by Joy Renee
Evita and Me is a historical novel, suspense thriller and coming of age story all rolled into one rollercoaster plot. This story, narrated by two fictional characters who found themselves drawn into the intrigues of Evita’s inner circle in the late 1940s is a creative exploration into the historian’s question: What happened to Eva Peron’s jewelry?
The first forty percent of the novel is narrated by Toronto born Mona and covers her weeks long trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina as a teen that culminates in a whirlwind trip through Europe with First Lady Eva Peron. Mona is telling the story from memory as a twenty-something college student traumatized by reading Evita’s obituary in the paper some five years after her life-changing adventure. She relates how she had at first been reluctant but agreed in order to escape watching the soppy romancing of her mother by her latest boyfriend. And as a chance to practice her Spanish.
She also decided on the day she left town that she was going to use the trip as an opportunity to remake herself, to ditch the rules and society norms of her hypocritic mother and her socialite ‘friends’. She remade herself all right and sometimes she walked such a fine edge she could have toppled into unfixable harm–to herself or others. But in the process she saw both sides of Argentina in the late 1940s–the seedy side of poverty and organized crime as well as the luxury among the mansion-living oligarchs like the family who had invited her.
Shortly after her arrival she caught the eye of First Lady Evita and was invited to be her English coach to help her prepare for an upcoming state tour of Europe and then was invited to join her on the tour. Meeting Evita was the second pivotal moment of her life. Her determination to remake herself now had a model. She wanted more than to be like her, she needed to be her. This was quite reminiscent of Western culture teens' worship of musical celebrities. Think Beyoncé and the Beatles.
But in Mona’s case she did get more return on her emotional investment than most modern teens do from their idols. Mona received from Evita some of the nurturing and validation she had never gotten from her own narcissistic and alcoholic mother. Plus she experienced surviving the letdown when her idol slipped off the pedestal without losing what she’d gained in self-esteem.
This first section is the part that reads like a coming of age story and ends as Evita’s brother Juan Durate and her bodyguard Pierre put her on a plane back to Toronto after the three of them fulfill a task for Evita. That of placing two cases into a Swiss bank vault–one of jewels and one of gold bars. She carries with her one of the three keys that will be needed to open the vault with instructions to hold it until Evita’s personal lawyer contacts her.
I must admit that on my first pass I developed a distaste for Mona and her antics in this first section but on my second read through I realized that I was bringing into it the dregs of the judgmentalism from the prudish Puritinesque cult that I was raised in. She had grown on me by the time I finished the story the first time but by the time I reached the end of her travels the second time, I’d discovered my usual talent for empathy which necessitates meeting a person where they are.
The rest of the novel goes back and forth between Pierre the bodyguard and Mona and their adventures after Evita dies having never retrieved the keys from them. Pierre’s sections have flashbacks to his time in Europe under German occupation and tell the story of his leaving Evita’s service after marrying another Canadian. So Mona and Pierre are both in Canada when the news breaks of Evita’s death and the now powerful Juan Duarte begins to use the long tentacles of his organized crime group embedded in the oligarchic power structure of Argentina to come after the two keys. And this power-corrupted thug will stop at nothing to get what he wants. There is a trail of broken people and dead bodies to prove it.
And yes, this story supports multiple reads. Though it can be read for the plot alone there are plenty of extra gems to unpack in subsequent reads and in my opinion worth as much if not more than Evita’s jewels.
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Below in the media kit find blurbs and an author bio that includes links to her web presence. Catch more reviews and excerpts via links to other participants in the tour. And don't forget to enter the giveaway.
From the Media Kit:
Description of Evita and Me by Erika Rummel
Evita Peron's jewels are missing. Only three people know that they are in a vault in the Swiss Alps; Evita's corrupt and brutal brother Juan, her bodyguard Pierre, and a teenaged girl Mona, her newest protegee. What happens if two of them team up? Like Eva herself, Mona comes from a broken family and has to make her own way. Perhaps that's why the two women feel close. Evita is at the pinnacle of success but already in the grip of a fatal illness. We see her life through the eyes of Mona and Pierre, two people she trusts -- and who betray her in the end. Or can theft and murder be justified? A story of love, adventure, and murder.Praise For Erika Rummel's novels
This is a fast paced page turner. A suspenseful, thrilling roller coaster ride with lots of twisty, loopy sections. Head Games is an apt title for this enthralling read.
About Erika Rummel
Award winning author, Erika Rummel is the author of more than a dozen non-fiction books and seven novels. Her seventh novel, Evita and Me is being published on May 24, 2022. She won the Random House Creative Writing Award (2011) for a chapter from The Effects of Isolation on the Brain and The Colorado Independent Publishers' Association's Award for Best Historical Novel, in 2018. She is the recipient of a Getty Fellowship and the Killam Award. Erika grew up in Vienna, emigrated to Canada and obtained a PhD from the University of Toronto. She taught at Wilfrid Laurier and U of Toronto. She divides her time between Toronto and Los Angeles and has lived in Argentina, Romania, and Bulgaria.Buy Evita and Me by Erika Rummel
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