Book review: Liliana’s Invincible Summer, by Cristina Rivera Garza

On July 16, 1990, Liliana was found dead in her apartment. She was killed by an ex-boyfriend, who had stalked her for many years. By the time an arrest warrant was filed months later, he was nowhere to be found. Nearly 30 years later, her older sister, the writer Cristina Rivera Garza, set out to recover a record of her sister’s life — and death. The trail, such as it was, had mostly evaporated, but Garza was determined to capture her sister’s last months and days. “I want to find the murderer and I want him to pay for his crime,” she writes in her powerful new book, “Liliana’s Invincible Summer.” “I seek justice.”

A striking tale of the violent risks faced by journalists in Mexico

Garza realizes that her pursuit is daunting, if nearly impossible, but her determination is unflappable. She may never find what she is seeking, but writing about the process is a kind of conjuring of the sister she lost. An artful catharsis. Her words come together in a book that is not so much plot-driven but rather a very careful excavation. Garza, a celebrated author and distinguished professor at the University of Houston, literally retraced her sister’s footsteps as a young college student to better understand her world before her death. The reader is privy to photographs and other ephemera left behind. The most minute details contain multitudes. Every word counts.

Throughout her journals, Liliana wrote extensively about her desire for freedom: “I am a seeker. I want to try new things; maybe more pain and loneliness but I think it would be worth it.” She longed for independence and often pondered why it was so difficult to simply exist as she was. Liliana’s ultimate goal was to belong to herself, to be the architect of her own life. Relationships with men were fraught because many of them resented this core part of her identity.

How many women will read about Liliana and see themselves? How many of us will shudder thinking of a dangerous partner from the past? How many of us will realize that we’re still on this earth by sheer luck? Life has always been so precarious for women. It’s difficult to find a time in history in which we’ve been safe. As Garza writes, “the only difference between my sister and me is that I never came across a murderer.”

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Thousands of years of human civilization, and women are still murdered with abandon all over the world. In this case, in one of the largest cities on the planet. Mexico is not safer than when Liliana left it. Far from it. On average, 10 Mexican women or girls are killed daily across the country. Women’s bodies are often disposed in public places to send a message. Between January and November 2022, there were 131 femicides in the state of Mexico alone. The authorities are often hostile or indifferent to the victims — dissecting their personal lives to find culpability in their own murders. What was she wearing? Why was she out alone at night? Why did she live by herself? The perpetrators are very rarely brought to justice, and some go on to kill more women.

As Garza points out, the terms “intimate partner violence” and “femicide” did not exist when Liliana was murdered. This type of violence was considered “a crime of passion,” as if the brutal killing of a woman were simply a quarrel between lovers. Femicide, the murder of a woman because of her gender, is now a term we hear quite frequently, thanks to the feminists who have been fighting a literal war in the streets of Mexico and beyond. Women all over the country have been marching to draw attention to the ongoing crisis. Mothers are demanding justice for their slain daughters, which can lead to their own murders. In 2020, protesters took over the Human Rights Commission building in Mexico City and have occupied it ever since. It’s become a refuge for women who have been victims of gender-based violence.

Throughout the memoir, Garza endures the excruciating bureaucracy of the Mexican government. She searches for her sister’s file and is sent to countless government agencies, each sending her to another office in an endless quest. It’s possible that the file may no longer exist. Liliana’s killer is still on the run, and Garza is unable to track down the file. (Since the publication of the Spanish edition of the book, Garza has been able to track down a few new clues, thanks to readers.)

Garza understands the urgency of justice in a land full of young women like Liliana. Ni Una Más, Not One More, is a chant heard across Mexico and Latin America. Women won’t let up until the violence ends, whenever that may be. We now have more language for violence against women. I suppose that’s progress. To be able to name something is powerful. That’s when we can begin to dismantle oppressive systems. Language and action, however, are two different things. Language often fails us, leaves us incomplete. That’s the nature of language. Not everything can be put into words, especially grief and rage, no matter how precise and skilled the writing is. The beauty of this book is that it reaches for that truth regardless, and in doing so, Liliana becomes indelible.She is so fully realized that by the end, the reader is also mourning. I will be thinking of Liliana for a very long time.

Erika L. Sánchez is a poet, novelist and essayist whose books include “Lessons on Expulsion,” “I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter” and, most recently, “Crying in the Bathroom.” She is the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz chair at DePaul University in Chicago.

Liliana’s Invincible Summer

A Sister’s Search for Justice