Say Her Name (2011) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

show spoilers

Characters/People edit see section history

• Juanita: Aura Estrada's loving, but controlling alcoholic mother.
• Aura Estrada: Francisco Goldman's beloved young wife, burgeoning author and subject of this book.
• Katia: Aura's stepsister and Rodrigo's daughter.
• Rodrigo: Juanita's second husband, Katia's father.
• Valentina: Chic, rich friend of Aura and Francisco in New York.
• Lola: Friend of Aura and Francisco in New York; Bernie Chen's partner, later, wife; names her daughter Aura.
• Mama Violeta: Juanita's mother, with whom Juanita fights and becomes estranged; Aura's grandmother.
• Leopoldo: Juanita's lawyer brother; Aura's uncle.
• Héctor: Juanita's first husband. Aura's father, whom she sees only twice in over 20 years.
• Ana Eva: The hostess at a bar/restaurant in Brooklyn who knows Aura and Francisco.
• Jose Borgini: Writer whom may or may not have been dating Aura when Francisco meets Aura.
• Jim: Victoria's investment manager rich, unloving husband.
• Vicky: Add a description of this character.
• Borges: Latin American writer whom Goldman quotes.
• Fabiola: Aura's cousin who was with them in Mazunte when the accident occurred.
• Spivak
• Julieta
• Alicia
• Natalia: Aura and Francisco's fictional child, who would have been born on January 17, 2008.
• Irma: The maid in Aura's story who is brought to La Ferte asylum by Marcelo Diaz Michaux.
• Salman Rushdie: The honored writer and guest attending a dinner that Aura and Francisco attend with Jose Borgini, another writer, the night they met.
• Gus: Francisco Goldman's first wife, they were married briefly in their 20's; later on, she became the author's good friend.
• Neruda: Pablo Neruda, Nobel winner poet whom Aura and Francisco revere, who is put down by Aura's Columbia University PhD professor.
• Marcelo Díaz Michaux: Psychoanalyst in Aura's novel, which was never published, who brings Irma to La Ferte asylum in France.
• Yolanda: Francisco's long-suffering mother in Massachusetts.
• Ursula
• Pauline: A young Frenchwoman, PhD student whom Aura befriended at a talk Francisco gave at the Mexican Cultural Institute.
• Dr. Arnaux: The doctor at La Ferte who Francisco tries to meet with when there.
• Mariana: Aura's friend who decides not to come to Mazunte with the couple due to financial reasons.
• Zoila
• Luiza: A visiting intern from Brazil who was visiting La Ferte and speaks Spanish when Goldman is there.
• Wendy: A fellow FAW classmate of Aura's.
• Jaime Brasi: Friend of Aura's from Mexico.
• Bernie Chen: Lola's partner and later, husband, living in NY.
• Dos Santos: Aura's first "bad boy" boyfriend and aspiring sensitive writer.
• Moira
• Woody Allen: Francisco identifies with the director and actor when he talks about a scene from "Annie Hall" in relation to their search for a Mexican priest to marry them.
• Nora Banini: Aura's and Katia's therapist.

Quotes edit see section history

• “Love is a religion. You can only believe it when you've experienced it.”

  Aura

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• Hold her tight, if you have her; hold her tight, I thought, that’s my advice to all the living. Breathe her in, put your nose in her hair, breathe her in deeply. Say her name.

  Highlighted by 27 Kindle customers

• Love is a religion. You can only believe it when you’ve experienced it.

  Highlighted by 25 Kindle customers

• This hand is the hand that touched your hair. Snow that sits where you used to sit.

  Highlighted by 16 Kindle customers

• Love does change your behavior, it does force you to aim for a higher standard.

  Highlighted by 13 Kindle customers

• Maybe memory is overrated. Maybe forgetting is better. (Show me the Proust of forgetting, and I’ll read him tomorrow.) Sometimes it’s like juggling a hundred thousand crystal balls in the air all at once, trying to keep all these memories going. Every time one falls to the floor and shatters into dust, another crevice cracks open inside me, through which another chunk of who we were disappears forever.

  Highlighted by 12 Kindle customers

• This is why we need beauty, to illuminate even what has most broken us, I said, sounding a bit like my old teacher self. Not to help us transcend or transform it into something else, but first and foremost to help us see it.

  Highlighted by 11 Kindle customers

• The world, not just Paris, is too idiotic and hateful to be left alone in.

  Highlighted by 9 Kindle customers

• People do change, they grow, and it also helps to have a good-guy husband who adores you.

  Highlighted by 9 Kindle customers

• La poesía es ficticia y no salva a nadie1

  Highlighted by 7 Kindle customers

• Aura’s smile could make anybody feel welcomed into her life, but it also left her vulnerable to grubby miscalculation.

  Highlighted by 5 Kindle customers

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Mexico City: Where Aura Estrada grows up.
• New York City: Where Aura attends grad school.
• Brooklyn: Carroll Gardens, where the couple resides from 2003 - 2007 and where the author continues to live.
• Columbia: Where Aura attends for her PhD.
• Paris: Where the couple visit.
• Guanajuato
• Puerto Escondido: Beach in Mexico.
• San José Tacuaya
• Tulum: The couple vacation here.
• Copilco: Where the apartment that Juanita buys Aura is located.
• Berlin
• Providence
• Austin: Where Aura attends undergrad school, U. of Texas.
• Oaxaca
• Brown
• Taxco: Where Juanita grew up, where Mama Violeta lived.
• Orlando: Where Katia's mother lived.
• Europe
• France
• Condesa
• Pochutla: The town where the first hospital is located.
• Huatulco
• Pacific
• Boston
• Manhattan
• San Miguel
• Cuba
• Central America
• Mazunte: Beach in Mexico, known for its calm waves.

Organizations edit see section history

• Premio Aura Estrada/Aura Estrada Prize: Writing award that Francisco Goldman oversees.

First Sentence edit see section history

Glossary edit see section history

• Tio/Tia: Uncle/Aunt

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Francisco Goldman (Author)

Other Contributors:

1. Robert Fass (Reader)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 813.54

Notes for Parents edit see section history

show spoilers

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Literary

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• New York Times Book Review: Attempting to understand a tragedy is, in a way, an impossible pursuit. How can one ever understand death? But in the face of it, what can anyone do but try? And so, Goldman studies the sequence of events that led to the accident that cut his wife’s promising life so short. The book jumps back and forth, following Goldman’s associations and memories — from that blissful trip to Paris, to Brooklyn after Aura’s death, to their first encounter at a literary event at New York University, to Aura’s childhood in Mexico City (which he pieces together from her diaries), then to their daily rituals and comedies as a married couple. But over and over, the book returns to his deep and consuming bereavement.