Isabel Allende: My family values

The novelist and former political refugee talks about her complex relationship with her mother, the death of her daughter and the impact of drug addiction on her family

The longest, most solid and complex relationship in my life is with my mother. It started before I was born and now, when I am 71 and living in California and she is 92 and living in Chile, we are still in touch daily. I have a closet full of my mother’s letters in plastic boxes; one for each year of our correspondence. We are very different women. She is Catholic, conservative, a real “lady” in the 1950s sense of the word, and also creative, curious and smart. Like most women of her generation and in her social class, she was raised to be a housewife and a mother; she depended first on her father and then on her husband, so she never felt really free.

My father left when I was three and I have no memory of him. The most significant male figures in my life were my grandfather, in whose house I lived during the first 10 years of my childhood, and later my stepfather. At the beginning I hated my stepfather but I learned to appreciate him and he has been my most loyal friend for more than half a century. He is 97 and I still call him for advice and emotional support. My tough grandfather, a self-made man, taught me that the most valuable asset a person can have is honour. His definition of honour was strict: honesty above all, family is second to honour only, have a work ethic, take care of myself and others, serve, be generous, never ask for anything that I can do or get by myself, never brag, whine or complain.

I wrote my first novel, The House of the Spirits, when living in exile in Venezuela, after the military coup in Chile in the 70s. That book was an attempt to recover the world I had lost: my country, my family, my home, my job, my friends. All the stories of my childhood came back to me in waves. I had no problem using my relatives as models for the characters; I simply changed a few names. Unfortunately, several of those relatives were enraged and didn’t speak to me for years.

Writing about my daughter Paula’s death [from porphyria] was cathartic. It saved me from total despair, it helped me to understand and accept what had happened. I had serious doubts about publishing such a personal book but I have never regretted it because for 20 years I have received daily messages from readers all over the world who are touched by the book. Everybody has losses – it’s unavoidable in life. Sharing our pain is very healing.

As a family, we have suffered for decades the impact of addiction. My husband William’s three children are, or were, drug addicts. His daughter died at 28 of drug-related causes, his youngest son died a few months ago at 35 of a heroin overdose, and his oldest son has spent half his life in jail for drugs. I know that the so-called war on drugs is lost. Addiction is a public-health issue, not a police or military problem. Bullets and prison are not the solution. Drugs should be controlled, like alcohol, but not penalised; money has to be taken out of the equation.

I have been a foreigner all my life, first as a daughter of diplomats, then as a political refugee and now as an immigrant in the US. I have had to leave everything behind and start anew several times, and I have lost most of my extended family. Here in California, I have tried to recreate a sense of extended family with a few chosen loyal friends. I call them “my tribe”. It works better than a real family because we are together by choice not obligation. My grandchildren have grown up in this little tribe and I don’t think they are aware that we are not even blood-related.