Adios, Happy Homeland

June 13, 2011
In her fourth book (after The Last War), Menéndez brings schizophrenic bravado to an ostensible anthology of fictional Cuban poets and writers (a group to which Menéndez herself claims membership) whose works have been collected by Herberto Quain, an Irishman. In his prologue, dated 1936, Quain recounts how a childhood fascination with Cuba led him to a job at the National Library in Havana. The stories that follow speak to his editorial authority and to Cuban literature with equal parts bright humor and strained artifice. In "Cojimar," Ernesto del Camino writes about an old man and the sea in a style that will be familiar to many. In "The Boy Who Was Rescued by Fish," a group of female co-workers use a self-help book to become "possibilitarians." In addition to shorts, poems, and a "Glossary of Caribbean Winds," the book includes a conflict between the authors and their editor; in an e-mail dated 1923, they question Quain's decision to unite such diverse writers under the "Cuban" banner and challenge his authority as a non-Cuban. His retort, dated 1912, hints at his ultimate goalânot so much a study of Cuban authorship as a meditation on fiction: "It is you who are invented, not I." The playfulness is both annoying and admirable.

July 1, 2011

A deft, playful collection of linked stories about migration, flight, (mis)translation, the joys and disfigurements of myth—that is, about Cuba.

The fourth book of fiction and second collection (In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd, 2001, etc.) by Cuban-American journalist Menéndez consists of 27 fragments of varying lengths, but it's not a miscellany. There's plenty of metafictional apparatus (a prologue by an Irish transplant to Havana, a lyrical dream-parable by a persona named Ana Menéndez in which she says that "Details are stupid and unreal" and urges us not to "get sucked in by my lies"). There are little riffs or games, such as the story that consists of Google translations of iconic Cuban poems. There are tributes to Cuban writers (Alejo Carpentier, Jose Martí and others). There are also more traditional stories—often with magical elements—like "The Parachute Makers," which ends, as several of these stories do, with a protagonist taking to the air to escape. In another book, all this intellectual superstructure might seem clunky or stilted, but in the case of a book about Cuba—especially a book about the emigre's longing for a Cuba that is now mythical and that may always have been, a Cuba made up of a few obsessive themes and metaphors—it works well, revitalizing the old tropes and stories by giving them a new setting and emphasis. This is most evident in a brace of Elián González stories, especially "The Boy Who Was Rescued by Fish," in "Glossary of Caribbean Winds" and in "The Boy Who Fell from Heaven," which begins with a list, grading from fact into fiction, of Cubans who've stowed away in the wheel wells of jets departing Havana.  

Part love song to Cuban literature and lore, part Borgesian encyclopedia of the subspecies of flight, part questioning of the very conditions of fiction-making—and all charming.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

March 1, 2011

In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd, Menendez's collection of linked stories about Cuban immigrants in Miami, got her some good attention when it appeared in 2001; her follow-ups have also done well. Her latest title, again a collection of linked stories, looks at appearance and reality in the life of a Cuban American writer. Watch it, she's good; especially for your literary readers.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 15, 2011

Menendez follows her successful In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd with another collection of interrelated short stories. The conceit is that an Irish immigrant to Cuba, now director of the Poetry of the Americas section of the National Library, is presenting an anthology of stories and poems from Cuban writers. This premise is carried all the way through, to the contributors' notes at the end. The stories include Elian Gonzales's saga, as presented by a revolutionary poet; a poet/historian's tale of a small town whose inhabitants prosper by making parachutes during wartime but see their livelihoods destroyed with peace; and a "Zodiac of Loss" presented by an astrologer who cannot use the letter e. Included are a memo from the fictional authors ordering the anthologist to cease and desist, since he is neither a poet nor Cuban, and a short by Menendez, who is identified as an imaginary writer and translator. VERDICT Not for the reader who demands a linear style, but many others will truly enjoy this innovative approach. A necessary purchase for Cuban American collections, this book should appeal to a wide audience. [See Prepub Alert, 1/31/11.]--Debbie Bogenschutz, Cincinnati State Technical & Community Coll. Lib.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2011

A deft, playful collection of linked stories about migration, flight, (mis)translation, the joys and disfigurements of myth--that is, about Cuba.

The fourth book of fiction and second collection (In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd, 2001, etc.) by Cuban-American journalist Men�ndez consists of 27 fragments of varying lengths, but it's not a miscellany. There's plenty of metafictional apparatus (a prologue by an Irish transplant to Havana, a lyrical dream-parable by a persona named Ana Men�ndez in which she says that "Details are stupid and unreal" and urges us not to "get sucked in by my lies"). There are little riffs or games, such as the story that consists of Google translations of iconic Cuban poems. There are tributes to Cuban writers (Alejo Carpentier, Jose Mart� and others). There are also more traditional stories--often with magical elements--like "The Parachute Makers," which ends, as several of these stories do, with a protagonist taking to the air to escape. In another book, all this intellectual superstructure might seem clunky or stilted, but in the case of a book about Cuba--especially a book about the emigre's longing for a Cuba that is now mythical and that may always have been, a Cuba made up of a few obsessive themes and metaphors--it works well, revitalizing the old tropes and stories by giving them a new setting and emphasis. This is most evident in a brace of Eli�n Gonz�lez stories, especially "The Boy Who Was Rescued by Fish," in "Glossary of Caribbean Winds" and in "The Boy Who Fell from Heaven," which begins with a list, grading from fact into fiction, of Cubans who've stowed away in the wheel wells of jets departing Havana.

Part love song to Cuban literature and lore, part Borgesian encyclopedia of the subspecies of flight, part questioning of the very conditions of fiction-making--and all charming.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)