An Island of Words

In the memoir, she speaks of the consequences of this big decision: “In one year, I had transformed my life, had willfully destroyed the career of editor I had carefully made step-by-step . . . I had left the hemisphere I knew, the people closest to me . . . because of a mere notion that I had to break free and find a way down to the bottom where the words I wanted to write had long drowned . . . And I had to go that distance to understand passion. Words and passion came at the same time. It was no coincidence that Elizabeth and writing become one and the same. One could not have lived without the other.”

The writing Torregrosa did in Manila, she says, “was like a rehearsal, or a tryout, bits and pieces, and some of it, in some way, exists today in The Noise of Infinite Longing.” Torregrosa would, in fact, write two books prior to her memoir, one about her time in Manila, which she tossed out — “Really, I have no copy” — and another, which she has shelved and whose content she hopes to plunder for a future project. Since her prose is so sensual and vivid, and her imagination seems to strain so right up against the facts of nonfiction, I wonder if she isn’t suited to write fiction. Torregrosa agrees — an idea is already under way — and she’s as restless and determined as ever to find more time for her lifework.

“Writing,” she says, “is the hardest thing on Earth. Really. I’m talking about literary writing. It takes it all out of you and often gives you little else back but the pride of having done it . . . But in my mind, there is nothing that someone with the gift to write can ever do but write, regardless of the public, regardless of critics, regardless of money . . . I could not not do it. What was the point of living if I didn’t?”

THE NOISE OF INFINITE LONGING: A MEMOIR OF A FAMILY — AND AN ISLAND | By LUSSITA LÓPEZ TORREGROSSA| RAYO | 286 pages | $25 hardcover