Love and Ghost Letters

This 2005 novel interested me because it is set in Cuba and the author is a young first-generation American Cuban. I hoped it would further my understanding of the Cuban experience. Yes, the book succeeded in that, but only in some ways because it only spans the years 1933-1959, before the Revolution. There is great wealth and abject poverty but it is not a book about the social issues of the time. Instead, it is about some very memorable human beings. Josefina was born into wealth, but fell in love with scoundrel of a poor man. Her father was a sergeant in the police force. He loved his daughter dearly and hated her husband. And then, during a student uprising, he was injured and the young woman assumed he was dead. He wasn't dead though. He had taken the ferry to Miami, where he lived for the next 25 years. However, he wrote to her almost daily, never telling her where he was, but just detailing family history. He pays a local butcher to deliver the letters and a take care of the family, and naturally a romance ensues. Josefina assumes that these were letters from heaven, hence the title of the book. The family goes through its ups and downs. The husband is often gone for years at a time, the older son is son is growing up too quickly. And the daughter has a wealthy friend she meets in church who has a secret of her own. I found the book interesting and read the 310 pages in a very short time. It is a good narrative and the writer is a fine storyteller. As a first novel, I think it is well crafted but I did yearn for more complexity and depth in both the story and the writing. I expect this author will grow though and I will definitely be interested in her next book.

Ms. Acevedo has given us a story that works on several levels at once. Set in Cuba and spanning many decades of Cuban life (from the '40s on), we have the story of the luckless Josefina, her womanizing husband, Lorenzo, her stubborn father, a policeman, and several other characters who weave themselves in and out of the principal characters' own story(ies) but, more significantly, is that represented through and by these characters is Cuba's own aimless and meandering attempts to establish for itself a solid identity as a country. Cuban politics play background music to the plight of Josefina and her family; the reader is forced to acknowledge constantly the constant changing face of Cuban life. A Cuban's life is consistently threatened with complete upheaval, literally overnight if the case may be, depending on who has power at the moment. As a microcosm of Cuba's political strife, Josefina's life and the life of her family are emblematic of this constant flux. Josefina is a woman who refuses to take charge of her life and she suffers as a result; she allows things to happen as they will and, because of this passive acquiescence, allows herself to be buffetted about by the winds of fate. Is Josefina's lack of command over her own life a statement concerning Cuba's own inability to chart for itself a stable, reliable, and peaceful destiny for its people? Josefina never seems to fully understand herself as she allows herself to be subsumed by first her father and then her husband. She becomes lost and confused much like Cuba's own history reflects the inability of the country to ever establish for itself a bona fide, concrete identity. Antonio, the father, who spends his later years living in America, isolated from his family (still living in Cuba) and his country, feels loss and confusion as well. Even Lorenzo's meandering infidelities seem to reflect a lack of self-understanding and self-definition. Josefina and Lorenzo's son aimlessly searches, too. Even Abel, the butcher, hesitates to grasp with decision the very thing that he believes will give his life meaning. The characters meander, failing to understand their context or each other for that matter. Ms. Acevedo captures their plight beautifully, with great care and sensitivity. We feel their pain and their struggles, and we begin to wonder about our own lives in the process.

I found this book at a major "wharehouse" type store, had never heard of the author and just picked it up and bought it. What a great read. I actually could not put it down and read it in 2 days while hurricane Wilma was beating my area. Kept me distracted from the rain and wind. The characters are well developed and although there are things that you think "this couldn't happen in real life" you may have a reaction to the characters as you just want to kick their butts for the decisions they make! The charactes are as real as unreal!

Highly recommended. Very enjoyable. A definite must to every reader's collection.