"The Many Mothers of Dolores Moore" | Reviewed by Diane Lick

Anika Fajardo’s novel, “The Many Mothers of Dolores Moore,” is a story about loss and finding your way forward to a new life. The book is told using a dual timeline, present-day Minneapolis, where Dolores is living, and Cali, Columbia, in 1989, where Delores was born.

    We first meet Dolores as she is dressing for her mother Jane’s funeral. Dolores has experienced a lot of death in her 35 years—grandmothers, great aunts, her mother Elizabeth, and now her mother Jane. Delores was adopted as baby, so she lost her birth mother Elizabeth too.

Dolores also lost contact with her best friend Becks because she moved to California. To further complicate her life, Dolores lost her job as a cartographer and her boyfriend when it became necessary for Dolores to take care of Jane.

Now Dolores is alone, except for the voices in her head. These voices come to her from her female relatives who have passed. They keep her company by constantly chatting about what she should do in any given situation. After Jane’s funeral, readers learn that Dolores had made her mother a death bed promise to go to Columbia and learn more about the family’s personal history. 

As a cartographer, maps have always been important to Dolores, but a trip to Cali was not on Dolores’s life map. A chance meeting with an old college boyfriend changes her mind. Dolores decides to make the journey, despite what her voices are telling her. Leaving her two cats in her former boyfriend’s care, and with a hand drawn map of Cali, which she has found in her adoption paperwork, she takes off for Columbia.

Interspersed with what Dolores experiences in Cali are chapters focusing on the backstory of Dolores’s parents, in 1989, and an explanation of how Dolores came to be adopted by Elizabeth and Jane. Dolores learns a lot about herself and to her surprise enjoys her time in Columbia. But when Dolores learns that her best friend, Becks has complications with her pregnancy, Dolores returns to the states to be with her. The twist to Dolores’s future happens at this point. 

To give away any more of the plot would ruin “The Many Mothers of Dolores Moore” and spoil this heartfelt story. It’s up to readers to discover if Dolores will resolve her quest to learn about her history and follow a map to her future—of if she will stagnant, and miss this golden opportunity.

Buy the book.