The Girl From Lisbon

The Girl From Lisbon is the story of Dona Gracia Mendes, the wealthiest woman in Europe. She began life as a normal girl, the daughter of the king of Portugal's personal physician. She was raised as a Catholic as were all of her friends. However, on her twelfth birthday Dona Gracia was led down into the basement of her home by her mother. Here she learned the family's secret, they were Jews. Gracia began to investigate her Jewish roots and embraced this faith tradition.

This book is 95% dialogue. Each character speaks for 10-15 pages at a time, then there is one sentence of action (usually another character making a statement) and another 15 pages of dialogue. Sometime before the midway point I got tired of this approach to telling the story. Most of the dialogue is a narrative giving the backstory on how Jews have been treated over the centuries. While the backstory was interesting, using this much dialogue seemed to be patronizing.

A 2011 article in The Editor's Blog states that when there is too much dialogue there is no action. The characters need to stop talking and act. The plot should be progressing and the conflict escalating. The dialogue should not take over the story. A writer should alternate between scenes of nearly all action or all dialogue in order to create a balance between them. "Characters who don't shut up are just an annoying as real people who don't. And readers have little incentive to keep listening when there's no payoff. Keep readers interested by your choices; don't run them off." Here, there is too much dialogue from Gracia's mother and husband as they instruct her in the history of the Jews and, later, commerce. I felt that I was reading a play, not a book.

At the 70% point in the novel the dialogue was split up with some action. However, long dialogues continued, giving the reader information on Christopher Columbus and others. At the end of the book there is a 50 page dialogue.

The Girl From Lisbon began with a great plot premise. The reader is promised the story of a girl who married and became wealthy and powerful. However, in the book Gracia has not yet married her fiance. The plot premise did not occur until the author's Afterward.  I think Gracia was an interesting historical figure. Thus, I will probably read Michal Regev's novel on Gracia, Dona Gracia's Gold Pendant. It begins with her widowhood and rise to power.

1 out of 5 stars.