The Age of Umbrage review: Jessica Zafra’s auspicious debut as novelist
The Age of Umbrage by Jessica Zafra is available at Shopee, Lazada, Mt Cloud, and the Ateneo University Press. For e-books and foreign orders, please go to facebook.com/ateneo press.
by Elizabeth Lolarga, Vera Files, 5 November 2020
Jessica Zafra has been known for her sardonic prose in her columns, particularly her film criticism, and her short fiction. So yes, it’s high time she came out with a novel that reflects that hers is THE ultimate voice of her generation.
The Age of Umbrage (is this title a bow to Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence?) is rife with history and drama, much like the American novelist’s famous work. Zafra casts her caustic eye on characters that look heavily drawn from real life like the protagonist Guada (the author’s alter ego, one supposes, considering her fondness for cats, her propensity for dressing up in all-black or Goth outfits, her voracious reading), her plump mother Siony who aspires for nothing more for her family than to migrate to the US and enjoy the opportunities that land is known for, the filty rich Almagro family, the bullies in school that make the mainstay’s life a purgatory, among many.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
