The Hacienda: A Memoir

Prize-winning British novelist (Keepers of the House) St. Aubin de Teran reminisces about her marriage to Don Jaime Teran. After her wedding to the Venezuelan aristocrat, which took place in the late 1960s when she was just 16 and he was 20 years older, the author drifted around Europe with him for two years before they returned to La Hacienda, her husband's sugarcane and avocado plantation in the Andes wilderness. Although she details how she came to terms with her husband's obvious madness and managed to make a life for herself despite the impoverished condition of the plantation, there are so many gaps in the narration that it is frequently difficult to follow. Shortly after their arrival home, the author's husband deserted her, but she managed to restore the plantation and deliver rudimentary health care to the workers there. When her husband returned, his episodes of madness became dangerous, and in 1979 the author escaped to England with their daughter, Iseult, who had been born in the Andes in 1973. The book is a compilation of interesting though disjointed impressions of an unusual experience. Photos. (Apr.)