Review: Is the heroine of 'Family Lore' predicting her own death, or does she just want a party?

Flor Marte, the protagonist of Elizabeth Acevedo's "Family Lore," has a gift her family likens to magic. The venerable New Yorker can predict when loved ones will die. Her unsettling prognostications take shape in dreams that resemble journeys; sometimes, it's "unclear whether she was the traveler or the destination."

In this vibrant family saga, Flor is both.

A past winner of a National Book Award for young people's literature, Acevedo wields her own sort of magic in her first novel for adults, deftly blending comedy and sorrow. "Family Lore" is an absorbing, entertaining portrait of a Dominican American woman whose exceptional relationship with death keeps her family — and readers — guessing.

The novel's triggering event is very 21^st century. After watching an obscure documentary on a streaming service, Flor decides to throw herself a living wake. A celebration of her life while she's still around to enjoy is a grand idea, she argues, but one that worries her family. Has she foreseen her own demise? Flor isn't saying, at least not yet.

Acevedo works in numerous narrative registers. She employs a hilarious deadpan when describing Flor's death-predicting skills. A flashback to young Flor finds her at the family breakfast table, where her parents are planning to visit an aunt. "It's too late," says the girl. "Your tía died."

As her intimates prepare to fete Flor, Acevedo introduces us to others in and around the Marte family, among them an academic, a restaurateur, a factory worker, a recent parolee, a woman so cruel that her daughter won't acknowledge her existence (the character's name appears as "[redacted]") and a mother who stabilizes a household undermined by her philandering husband.

Toggling between the recent past and the present, Acevedo tracks her characters migrating from the Dominican Republic to New York City. Yadi, Flor's niece, embodies the promise and pain of the family's journey. At first, she can't understand the U.S., a "silly, ugly country that didn't have palm trees." In time, she starts a restaurant in New York but, just when she's building her business, an ex-boyfriend reemerges after a spell in prison.

Acevedo's attention to her character's mannerisms and habits makes them relatable. One self-consciously covers her mouth when eating, another flattens her stomach with "bootleg Spanx." And Acevedo's research into Caribbean history, colonialism and gang life as experienced by immigrant families provides the book with a strong intellectual foundation.

In a letter sent to booksellers in advance of this novel's publication, Acevedo shared a tip for young writers to follow: "I keep a notebook of words that strike my ear and ring like a boxing-match bell."

It's an apt simile. As her fans can attest, Acevedo is a writer with the tools to go the distance.

Kevin Canfield is a regular contributor to the Star Tribune's books coverage.

Family Lore

By: Elizabeth Acevedo.

Publisher: Ecco, 384 pages, $30.