Next Year in Havana

Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton is part historical fiction, part romance, and part political commentary on present-day Cuba. What I most liked about this novel, though, is that it made me think. A lot.

Growing up, spending vacations in with my cousin in Miami, I was familiar with a lot of Cubans. Looking back, though, I kind of lumped the Cubans that I knew with all the other immigrants that I knew. And I knew many of  those. Granted, I was a little kid and wouldn't have understood the details of how these Cubans ended up in Miami. But now that I do... wow!

Cubans did not come to the United States because they thought life would be better here. That's the reason why my husband and his family came  to the United States in the late 1950s. Many of the Cubans who came to the United States in the late 1950s came because life was intolerable, dangerous for many, and they had to get away. Okay, so that sounds like my family members who left Russia at the time of the pogroms. But even that's different. Because eventually all the Jewish people left the parts of Russia where my family had lived. Many Cubans, however, opted to stay. And the view of the  Cubans who stayed of the Cubans who left is quite interesting.

In some ways I compare it to the Italians who look at my husband as being someone who fled. That wasn't really the case. His parents made the decision to bring their sons to the United States for a better life. But they weren't fleeing. And the decision was not my husband's. Then again, the Cuban situation is totally different.

When travel to Cuba first opened up, my cousin (mentioned above) and I had plans to take a trip there, before all the tourist came back. Sadly, my cousin got sick and passed away and we were never able to make the trip. Reading this novel, for now, will have to suffice.

Two stories are being told here. One is the story of Elisa Perez, the daughter of a sugar baron, coming of  age. Times are turbulent, but she is extremely protected until she and her sisters sneak out of the house to attend a party of "a friend of a friend." Elisa and her family get swept into the politics of the time.

The modern story is that of Elisa's granddaughter, Marisol, who after Elisa's death travels to Cuba for the first time to scatter Elisa's ashes. And to learn about her grandmother's secrets. She was also forced to reflect upon the huge gulf existing between the Cubans who stayed in Cuba when Fidel Castro came into power and those who left.

This was a very interesting read and I believe I learned a lot.