The Great Divide deals with the monumental historical event of the digging of the Panama Canal and the ramifications for Panamanians and others pulled into the epic drama of its building. However, it presents its themes in microcosm, through intimate looks into the lives of people affected by the overwhelming reality of the building of the canal. The machinations of governments remain mostly in the background; it is the effect of decisions in high places upon real people that is brought to the fore.

The title refers not just to the huge literal ditch that is dividing one continent from another; it also refers to the divisions between individuals as they confront the changing of their lives. For instance, a fisherman refuses to speak to his son when he takes a job as a digger in the Canal Zone; a sixteen-year-old girl, the child of a white plantation owner and a Black servant, leaves her family in Barbados to seek employment in Panama to pay for medical treatment when her sister becomes ill; when an American scientist researching a means to eliminate malaria moves to Panama, his wife becomes deathly sick.

It took me a while to become absorbed in this story because of the manner in which each subplot is introduced and then left hanging while another thread is added. Once all the major characters have made their appearances, though, their lives begin to intersect and blend in holistic patterns that afford a view of how the inevitable upheaval of the canal building impacts the people involved in it.

The strength of this novel is in its presentation of its characters with all their backgrounds and intricacies. They are depicted in fascinating detail, through flashbacks and even flash-forwards of what happens to them in years to come. This context adds to the appreciation of who they are and why they do what they do.

I don’t often read historical novels; usually if I am interested in a particular time I prefer its depiction in pure nonfictional history. This novel, though, while emotionally written, manages to avoid the melodrama that plagues so much historical fiction. I became invested in the characters without feeling that I had descended into an antiquated soap opera. This is one of the book’s strengths. Another is the way that it thoughtfully deals with so many pertinent issues: the audacity and racism of the Americans as they barge into another country, rip it apart, and then put it back together in their own image; the disruption of the lives of common Panamanians; discord between generations when confronted with inevitable change; attempting to eradicate deadly diseases that claim multitudes of lives; and the disparate toxic effects of colonization on both the oppressed and the oppressors.

Henriquez at no time yields to preachiness; she always confines her commentaries within the bounds of the metaphorical lives of her characters. This strengthens the book’s relevance and gives universality to its themes. It’s not just about the great divide that split the country of Panama in the early twentieth century; it is also concerned with the great divides that isolate humans one from another – and it poses the question of whether it is possible for us to breach these gaps.