Tag: Next Year in Havana

Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton: A Review

“To be Cuban is to be proud – it is both our greatest gift and our biggest curse. We serve no kinds, bow no heads, bear our troubles on our backs as though they are nothing at all. There is an art to this, you see. An art to appearing as thought everything is effortless, that your world is a gilded one, when the reality is that your knees beneath your silk gown buckle from the weight of it all. We are silk and lace, and beneath them we are steel.” – Chanel Cleeton, Next Year in Havana

The phrase, “next year in Havana” is a toast used within the Cuban exile community in Miami that expresses the now generations-long desire to be able to return to their homeland. The novel is set in two time periods and follows the experiences of two very different women: Elisa, the daughter of a Cuban sugar baron on the eve of the Cuban Revolution, and Marisol, her granddaughter, who grows up in contemporary Miami as a result of Elisa’s family having fled the island years before to avoid reprisals from Fidel Castro’s regime. The novel moves between the two characters’ experiences as Elisa struggles to come to terms with the life she has always known – a world protected by wealth, influence and corruption – crumbles around her, and Marisol’s return to Cuba to spread the ashes of her grandmother on the land she loved. As the story unfolds, a number of family secrets are revealed, including Elisa’s love affair with a Cuban revolutionary that could have torn her family apart.

I really enjoyed this novel. In fact, to get through the 356 pages in a week, I decided I would get up early every day to get some reading in and I found myself looking forward to starting my day with a few chapters with a cup of coffee (let me stress, I am in no way, shape or form a “morning person”). At times, I was frustrated by how oblivious Elisa was to the suffering of the majority of Cuban people while her family lived in a bubble of high society parties, but I also appreciated the ways in which the novel revealed the complexities of being Cuban. Cleeton is the descendant of Cubans who fled after the revolution and Marisol’s character reflects that experience. There are obvious political divides within the novel like those that separate Batista’s supporters from Castro’s but the divides go much deeper. In 1959 when Castro came to power, many wealthy Cubans fled  – there is friction to this day between those who left and those who stayed. Many exiles want to see the return of Cuba as it was in their memories, decades ago, and contemporary Cubans living in Cuba are divided between those who support the government and those who seek to overthrow it. As the grandaughter of an exile, Marisol’s understanding of Cuba is shaped by her family’s memories – what they see as ‘preserving’ the Cuba that existed before it was destroyed by the revolution, but this is challenged when she goes to Cuba:

You cannot live in a museum, Marisol. The problem with your ‘preservation’ is that it fails to account for the fact that there is a real Cuba. A living, breathing Cuba. You’re all busy fighting imaginary ghosts in Miami while we’re here, bleeding on the ground, dealing with real problems … You’re still pissed because your grand mansions were taken away and are now occupied by the very men you hate the most. The rest of us are caught in the middle, worrying about how to survive.”

But this is not just a novel that deals with the history or politics of Cuba: it is also a love story. Elisa’s love for Pablo, a revolutionary fighting against everything her family stands for, has the potential to destroy her life; decades later, Marisol goes to Cuba and falls in love with a revolutionary of a sort herself, but Luis is a history professor dedicated to ending the regime of Castro and his followers. Hope and loss are a constant in the novel as each character attempts to define what it means to be Cuban against a shifting and uncertain landscape.

If you are dreaming of an escape to Cuba now that winter really feels like it’s here, then it would be worth picking up Next Year in Havana. The storyline is compelling and emotional and Cleeton’s writing brings to light the beauty of Cuba and its people. If you read this one, drop me a line and let me know what you think. And now off to World War 2 London with Dear Mrs Bird!

November Line Up

While I am usually happy with my home on the east coast, if there is one month I feel a little less than grateful, it’s November. It’s dark, cold, wet, dreary, gray – I could play this game for a long time, folks. So for this month, the theme is “Get Me Out of Here!” If I can’t escape the magical weather combination of drizzle and sleet that November brings in real life, at least I can travel via book. All of this month’s selections are set in other places so maybe you’ll find one in here too to help you beat the November blahs.

November 3: The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin. I first picked this book up because I loved the cover (I know what you’re thinking but let’s all admit, sometimes beautiful books actually do have beautiful covers). The concept behind the story is really interesting: one hot summer day in 1969, four siblings in New York City visit a psychic who tell each one the exact day they will die. The rest of the novel is divided into four parts, one devoted to each sibling as Benjamin reveals how the prophecy influences each of their lives. The story zigzags across the US as the siblings move away from their childhood home in NYC in pursuit of their dreams.

November 10: The Little French Bistro by Nina George. I really enjoyed George’s other novel, The Little Paris Bookshop, which hooked me with the idea of a bookshop in a canal boat that goes floating around the rivers of France. It was totally charming and sweet, oh, and there were recipes in the back of the book for all the French food George writes about in the novel. What’s not to love? In her new novel, George’s main character, Marianne, packs it in after she can stand her unhappy marriage no longer and leaves Paris for the Brittany coast. And there are recipes again, so I will let you know if I try any…

November 17: Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton. This is a recent Reese’s Book Club pick. I will admit, I really do love Reese Witherspoon. She is amazing in HBO’s Big Little Lies (if you haven’t watched it, read the book first, it is so good) and she does a lot to promote all things bookish. I also really love Cuba. The country, the people and the culture are beautiful and the island’s history is fascinating so I was sold on this book. The story is set between 1958, in the years before the revolution and in Miami in 2017 and follows two women, Elisa, a member of a wealthy Cuban family who is forced to flee during the revolution and Marisol, her granddaughter, who eventually returns to Cuba to scatter Elisa’s ashes in the country of her birth.

November 24: Dear Mrs. Bird by AJ Pearce. This novel is set in London during World War II. The main character, Emmeline, dreams of becoming a war correspondent. Instead, she ends up answering letters for Mrs. Bird, a renowned advice columnist. Mrs. Bird tells Emmy to throw any letters that involve Unpleasantness straight into the garbage but Emmy ends up reading them and answering them in secret. This book is supposed to be both funny and moving, so I am really looking forward to it.

So there we are, the continental US, France, Cuba and England. You can take your pick but while the November rain pours down, I am going to be somewhere cozy with a good book and I hope you will be too. Let me know if you plan on picking up any of November’s books!