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Overview
"The numbing rhythm of daily life in poverty-stricken Havana had deadened Danae's mind and spirit. On the verge of a breakdown, she unceremoniously leaves Havana without explanation to her family. In search of her first true love, Danae retreats into the countryside of her adolescence, where the government of Fidel Castro had sent her and other teenagers in the late 1970s to work in the fields under a corrupt and sadistic overseer. It was here, surrounded by a natural world infused with spiritual wonders, that Danae met and fell in love with Tierra Fortuna Munda, a campesino girl her own age. And here the reader falls into the magic of Danae's late childhood, as a wooden suitcase, an ancient ceiba tree, a manatee, even light itself, narrate the gritty, irreverent, erotic, sometimes comic, often tragic life of the young adults in the work camps." When the adult Danae finds Tierra, their lives are transformed, their love and its mysteries reborn. However, their return to Havana proves to be the ultimate test of love, not only for Danae and Tierra, but also for Danae's desperate family.Synopsis
The numbing rhythm of daily life in poverty-stricken Havana has deadened Danae's mind and spirit. In search of her first true love, Danae returns to the countryside of her adolescence, where the government of Fidel Castro had sent her and other teenagers in the late 1970s to work in the fields under a corrupt and sadistic overseer. It is there, surrounded by a natural world infused with spiritual wonders, that Danae met and fell in love with Tierra Fortuna Munda, a campesino girl her own age. When the adult Danae finds Tierra again, their lives are transformed and their love reborn. But the ultimate test — their return to Havana — still lies before them.
Bloomsbury Review
“An absorbing meditation on love, spirituality, adolescence and existence.”
Editorials
Bloomsbury Review
"An absorbing meditation on love, spirituality, adolescence and existence."Bloomsbury Review
“An absorbing meditation on love, spirituality, adolescence and existence.”Library Journal
Danae lives in present-day Havana with her husband and two children. In the midst of a midlife crisis, she thinks back to a summer in the 1970s when she was sent to the country to labor in the fields. The work was hard, the accommodations minimal, and the food substandard. However, Danae met a local girl named Tierra Fortuna, and as the two became friends, she was introduced to all the magical creatures and features of the area. The girls experienced their "first love" that summer-with each other-and memories of their relationship compel Danae to abandon her husband and children and return to the country to find Tierra and reclaim their love. In her third novel to appear in English (after I Gave You All I Had), Valdes offers a graphic description of both adolescence and life in Cuba, ultimately building her novel from a series of events somewhat unhinged from reality. Valdes's use of nonhuman (usually) inanimate objects as storytellers keeps the reader off balance. This study in contrasts is recommended primarily for literature collections.-Joanna Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Coll. of Continuing Education, Providence Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.Kirkus Reviews
This ambitious third novel from the Havana author (I Gave You All I Had, 1999, etc.) is, like its predecessors, a bold criticism of the ongoing Cuban Revolution’s repressive social controls and a forthright (in fact, X-rated) celebration of uncontrollable sexual passion. Valdés’s protagonist, middle-aged Danae, leaves her dull husband and clinging family to return to the western Pinar del Rio region where, as a 12-year-old girl in the 1970s, she had labored in the tobacco fields as part of Fidel Castro’s "re-education" programs for urban dwellers, and fallen in love with the taciturn country girl Tierra Fortuna Munda (yes, a symbolic name if there ever was one). This former "child enlightened in the mysteries of nature," with whom Danae is now reunited, is the center of a vortex of "voices"--heard both in the present and in the remembered past, which plaintively express the hunger for political, religious, and sexual freedom. Valdés is a formidably gifted storyteller, but her very noisy tale shouts its messages, revels in awkward crudities (the labor camp’s girls are further burdened by nicknames like Mara the Wheezer and Venus Putrefaction), and sinks into a morass of forced exoticism, magical realism, and animism (narrators of various segments include numerous animals, and a suitcase). There’s a lot going on here, but it’s still the least successful of Valdés’s work yet.Book Details
Published
November 1, 2003
Publisher
HarperCollins Publishers
Pages
304
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9780060959098