Kate Braverman Books

The novel delves into the lives of three women in a tumultuous Los Angeles barrio, each seeking redemption and understanding. Frances Ramos, a confident prostitute, navigates her status among local gangs, while Gloria Hernandez grapples with betrayal, igniting her inner turmoil. Marta Ortega, an insightful elder, embodies a deep connection to nature and observes the intertwining fates of her community. Together, their stories reflect themes of resilience, betrayal, and the complex interplay of personal and communal destinies.

Exploring the final moments of Frida Kahlo's life, the narrative unfolds through her memories and hallucinations as she reflects on her experiences. At 46, on her deathbed, she interacts with significant figures from her past, including family and Diego Rivera. The journey traverses vibrant locations like San Francisco's Chinatown and Paris in 1939, blending dream and reality. With poetic language, Braverman captures Kahlo's defiance and artistic spirit, offering a profound meditation on life, identity, and the creative process.

Lithium for Medea is a tale of addiction: to drugs, physical love, and dysfunctional family chains. It is also a tale of mothers and daughters, their mutual rebellion and unconscious mimicry. Rose grew up with an emotionally crippled, narcissistic mother while her father, a veteran gambler, spent his waking hours in the garden cut off from his wife's harangues. Now an adult, Rose works her way through a string of unhealthy love(less) affairs. After a brief, unhappy marriage, she slips more deeply and dangerously into the lair of a parasitic, cocaine-fed artist whose sensual and manipulative ways she grows addicted to in the bohemian squalor of Venice.

Syrový a drsný životní příběh Fridy Kahlo začíná a končí ve chvíli, kdy šestačtyřicetiletá malířka leží na smrtelné posteli a omámená sedativy a alkoholem si přehrává svůj život. Frida se na své snové pouti vrací k divokým cestám po Americe, které s manželem, slavným sochařem Diegem Riverou, zažila, k bohémskému pobytu v Paříži roku 1939 i k dětství a životu v rodném Mexiko City. Žena, která vedla život na ostří nože, nešetřila sebe ani okolí a přes svou mimořádně silnou osobnost musela žít ve stínu despotického manžela, kterého milovala a současně nenáviděla až za hrob. Americká autorka zaujme čtenáře i svým mimořádně bohatým jazykem, vytváří novou syntax, která je ovlivněna poezií, hudbou a divadlem a samotný text se pohybuje na pomezí románu, memoáru a biografie.