Telex from Cuba: A Novel | Rachel Kushner | A perfect gem sweltering in the Cuban sun

Telex from Cuba: A Novel | Rachel Kushner | Good, but not great

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Telex from Cuba: A...

	Telex from Cuba: A Novel Rachel Kushner Scribner, 2008 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 70 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Rachel Kushner has written an astonishingly wise, ambitious, and riveting novel set in the American community in Cuba during the years leading up to Castro's revolution -- a place that was a paradise for a time and for a few. The first novel to tell the story of the Americans who were driven out in 1958, this is a masterful debut.

Young Everly Lederer and K. C. Stites come of age in Oriente Province, where the Americans tend their own fiefdom -- three hundred thousand acres of United Fruit Company sugarcane that surround their gated enclave. If the rural tropics are a child's dreamworld, Everly and K.C. nevertheless have keen eyes for the indulgences and betrayals of the grown-ups around them -- the mordant drinking and illicit loves, the race hierarchies and violence.

In Havana, a thousand kilometers and a world away from the American colony, a cabaret dancer meets a French agitator named Christian de La Mazière, whose seductive demeanor can't mask his shameful past. Together they become enmeshed in the brewing political underground. When Fidel and Raúl Castro lead a revolt from the mountains above the cane plantation, torching the sugar and kidnapping a boat full of "yanqui" revelers, K.C. and Everly begin to discover the brutality that keeps the colony humming. Though their parents remain blissfully untouched by the forces of history, the children hear the whispers of what is to come.

At the time, urgent news was conveyed by telex. Kushner's first novel is a tour de force, haunting and compelling, with the urgency of a telex from a forgotten time and place.

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A perfect gem sweltering in the Cuban sun

There is not a mundane paragraph or sentence in this novel. It's a sweltering, haunting mess of beauty that seamlessly weaves together history, family drama, political strife and the inability of self-involved people to fall in love- but how they pretend to anyway. Kushner skips from the hearts and minds of a child of a sugar cane plantation owner, a fake French dancer who paints on her fishnet stockings and secretly works with the Castro revolutionaries while seducing their main enemy, American society women who can't stand the "ethnic" Cuba, and many more with a natural rhythm that seems absolutely effortless.

Every voice is poetic, unique and very, very memorable. Just as vibrant as the characters is the setting- from crumbling mansions, smoky nightclubs and the sun-baked streets of Cuba- the book almost seemed to emit sunshine. More than once I wished I had a pan con bistec and a cold glass of sweet tea from my favorite Cuban restaurant to enjoy while I read.

This book would be wonderful if it was the 15th book of an author- the fact that this is Kushner's first novel is nothing short of astonishing. I've been lucky lately and discovered some fantastic books by first-time novelists that showed skill in prose, storytelling and characterization far beyond their experience- Audrey Niffenegger (The Time-Traveler's Wife), Diane Setterfield (The Thirteenth Tale), Steve Toltz (A Fraction Of the Whole) and Stefan Merrill Block (The Story of Forgetting) to name a few. "Telex from Cuba", to me, stands tall right next to them and I'm already anticipating her novel just as much (maybe even a bit more) than those mentioned authors.

It's hard for me to think of a book I've read recently that has engaged my brain, imagination and touched and entertained me so much all at the same time. I cannot recommend this book enough- I honestly found no flaw in it, it was an absolute joy to read from page 1 to page 322. I hate gushing in my reviews but I honestly have no other reaction to this gorgeous story. It will always be on my "keeper" shelf, lent out to my closest friends and re-read throughout the years. Please, please be prolific, Rachel Kushner.

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Good, but not great

For a debut novel, Telex from Cuba shows plenty of promise from author Rachel Kushner. The novel is the story of the Americans who were driven from Cuba when Castro took control. The pre-Revolutionary paradise that Cuba was for many of the wealthy Americans living there comes crumbling down. The story is told largely from the point of view of two teenage children. Other characters added fresh insight and perspective but they had smaller parts.

It is somewhat difficult to write a review of Telex from Cuba because bits and pieces of it were very good--raw, evocative, and rich. But on the other hand, as some other reviewers have noted, the characters were rather flat. I had a hard time connecting to them and feeling empathy for them. Aside from that, I enjoyed the beginning and the ending but the middle definitely dragged in some places. While I can't put my finger on why, for some reason the story lacked that mysterious element that makes a reader want to turn page after page. Kushner shows a lot of promise as a writer. She can write scenes beautifully. While I probably won't be recommending Telex from Cuba to friends, I will definitely be checking out Kushner's future works.

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Telex from Cuba: Novel or Diary?

I may be biased in this review having been born and raised until age 14 in Oriente,Cuba, but some of the information in this book may be slightly skewed, particularly regarding poverty. The book reads more like a diary, missing a well defined plot, and failing to involve the reader in a story which so intensely affected so many Cuban natives, north American and European immigrants and entrepreneurs.Still, the book will furnish interesting passages and some history to the naive reader.

Not great, but ok...

I like reading material, fiction or non, about pre Castro Cuba. It was a hell of a place to grow up in and a worse place to be stuck when it all goes wrong. Batista was a scum sucking money grubbing corrupt scoundrel and this book relates it well. A family comes of age on a sugar cane plantation where the local politics runs high while everyone is looking over their shoulder at a growing dictatorship. This book was written in a style that frankly I usually have a hard time following along with. I finally tossed it about two thirds the way through because I kept finding my self flipping back and forth between the front and the back of the book to connect the dots. It jumps chronologically all over the place, the names and who is related to who gets a bit hard to track. Kind of like a Tom Clancy novel. Two or three stories eventually merging into one. Eventually. Itsoon all comes together in the latter part of the book but in the meantime, don't forget what you read 50 pages earlier. Take notes if you wish. It may help.... Life and culture of the Cuban people from that era seem to be portrayed well and with accuracy, based on other books I've read about the country during its transitions of the 50's. But what is clear throughout, is that Cuba was a time bomb ready to go off and did it ever. This book follows a family, its business and the adaptation to a lifestyle that was in constant change. This is a good read, but not my kind of book. By habit, I always find my self challenging accuracy of fiction writing about a real life period. The author, with some real life experiences to back it all up, relates Cuba as it looked to the locals in the 1950's. Not the sanitized version that the U.S. government gave us while backing the Batista regime.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

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