The Lost Book of Adana Moreau: Why Should I Care?

I'm going to be honest. I'm not sure how I feel about The Lost Book of Adana Moreau. The novel is rooted in storytelling and recalling the histories of its characters (quite literally all of its characters) and their ancestors. At the point of writing this, I haven't finished the novel and I'm struggling to do so. There is so much background and so many origin stories about almost every character we are introduced to as readers, so much so that it's difficult to stay engaged. I've been asking myself the following questions since last week: Why should I care about any of these characters? I recognize the novel's central themes of exile and displacement and familial loss, but one question in particular still stands: how do I bring myself to care?

I love a good backstory; we (usually) rely on them to connect to the characters and piece together everything that is happening in the story. However, in Zapata's novel, I find the constant back and forth of settings, time periods, and historical context to be overwhelming. I can't piece anything together and frankly, I have lost interest in the characters and the story. For example, Zapata spends ten pages talking about Javier's time in Buenos Aires. When reading this, why should I care about if the manuscript gets to Maxwell? Am I supposed to care? Maybe the novel isn't about getting the manuscript to Maxwell. But what is the novel about?

I've been wondering: how does my reading of this novel differ from that of 'The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao'? Both 'Oscar Wao' and 'Adana Moreau' make heavy use of flashbacks. Both novels are rooted in the histories and traumas of parents and grandparents, as well as the personal traumas of the protagonists. Why do I care about the characters in 'Oscar Wao,' but not those in 'Adana Moreau'?

I felt progression in Díaz's novel, like I was getting somewhere. We followed Oscar from his early life until the very end. We saw him change and develop; we saw him suffer and we saw him finally get what he had been wanting for so long. There were frequent flashbacks and backstories, but they were placed differently. While each chapter was set in a different time period, they were consistent. They only focused on one character and their story, not the histories of every character mentioned. In comparison, the backstories in 'Adana Moreau' are placed differently. Each chapter is also separated by time period and character, but within these chapters there are pages of backstory on certain characters that I frankly, don't really need to know much about. For example, Zapata spends pages talking about the mathematician who briefly knew Maxwell Moreau but "didn't have any information for Saul" (148). In times like this, I lost interest in the novel.

There simply isn't as much progression in 'Adana Moreau.' The supposed primary plot line drags on; at my time of writing this - more than three quarters of the way through the novel - I still don't know where Maxwell is and I can't bring myself to care. I feel disconnected from the story and its characters, like I'm floating through the novel without being grounded to anything and without the ability to form any opinions about it except my confusion and frustration.