tonstantweader's review
3.0
Havana Libre opens with a tourist going through customs in Havana, a tourist soon revealed to be a terrorist smuggling bomb-making materials into the country, before taking up the story of the main character, Dr. Mano Rodriguez. Mano is a dedicated doctor, though frustrated by the privations and inefficiencies of Cuba’s regime. Much of the focus is on how much harder life has become for Cubans after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of Soviet support. The decades-long blockade impinging more than it did when the Communist bloc ignored it.
Mano has been invited to attend a medical conference in Tampa, though he knows he will never get approval. After all, his mother is dead and his father is an exile, a gusano (worm), who defected before he was born. When state security discovers there is a terrorist planning an attack on Havana, Mano is a perfect person to investigate…he has a reason for going to Florida and the person who they believe paid the bomber is a friend of his father. After seeing the aftermath of one hotel bombing, Mano agrees to go.
The mystery is about half n Havana and half in Miami. In Havana, we learn about his life, his family, and his interest is helping a young patient. We learn about his job and a lot about life in Cuba. The story is based on the real September 4, 1997, terrorist attacks in Havana by Cuban exiles and the Cuban Five who came to the US as defectors to find the terrorist networks.
There is much to admire in Robert Arellano’s Havana Libre. The mystery is sufficiently complex and when things seem too easy, there is a reason for that. The suspense and jeopardy are real, not contrived. The sense of place is excellent and Arellano uses all five senses to draw us into the story. Most of the characters are complex and interesting.
There is one major flaw, though it’s not in the story, setting, or characters. It is in the writing. Arellano incorporates a lot of Spanish. This should not be a problem, lots of writers interject foreign language into their books featuring foreign characters. However, there’s a kind of rhyme and reason to those additions. Generally speaking, people who are speaking in English reach to their first language when they swear, when they are agitated, and when the English language does not really capture the fuller meaning of the first language idiom.
Arellano inserts Spanish in all those cases, but also in weird and obtrusive ways such as using piernas. It’s not an idiomatic expression with more meaning than legs, it’s not a moment of agitation or an epithet. It’s just a Spanish word used instead of an English one. It’s not a word a second language speaker would struggle for either, it’s first-year vocabulary. I am fluent in Spanish, so I did not struggle with the frequent Spanish words, but even I found the frequent resorting to Spanish obtrusive and interruptive. When Arellano uses ganas instead of wanting, it makes sense. Ganas has so much more meaning and context, lust, ambition, desire…so that is smart. Piernas is just wrong. These are just two examples, but the story is riddled with Spanish used without the usual reasons of agitation, epithet, or idiomatic power.
I also struggle with how writers will toss in maricón, the homophobic epithet. It made sense in the context of this book, but was it necessary? In this book as in most of them where the writer uses this word, it seems like a permission slip to use the English epithet that would be impermissible without using the Spanish to leverage its use.
What I liked best was the obvious love Mano has for Cuba and its people. So often, books about Cuba are one-dimensional, but this one is far better than that. Yes, life is a struggle and the government is stultifying and oppressive, but it’s not paranoid. Other people really are out to get them.
Havana Libre was released today. I received an advance reading copy from the publisher through a LibraryThing drawing. It is a sequel to Havana Lunar both featuring Dr. Mano Rodriguez.
Havana Libre at Akashic Books
Robert Arellano on Facebook
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2017/12/05/9781617755835/
Mano has been invited to attend a medical conference in Tampa, though he knows he will never get approval. After all, his mother is dead and his father is an exile, a gusano (worm), who defected before he was born. When state security discovers there is a terrorist planning an attack on Havana, Mano is a perfect person to investigate…he has a reason for going to Florida and the person who they believe paid the bomber is a friend of his father. After seeing the aftermath of one hotel bombing, Mano agrees to go.
The mystery is about half n Havana and half in Miami. In Havana, we learn about his life, his family, and his interest is helping a young patient. We learn about his job and a lot about life in Cuba. The story is based on the real September 4, 1997, terrorist attacks in Havana by Cuban exiles and the Cuban Five who came to the US as defectors to find the terrorist networks.
There is much to admire in Robert Arellano’s Havana Libre. The mystery is sufficiently complex and when things seem too easy, there is a reason for that. The suspense and jeopardy are real, not contrived. The sense of place is excellent and Arellano uses all five senses to draw us into the story. Most of the characters are complex and interesting.
There is one major flaw, though it’s not in the story, setting, or characters. It is in the writing. Arellano incorporates a lot of Spanish. This should not be a problem, lots of writers interject foreign language into their books featuring foreign characters. However, there’s a kind of rhyme and reason to those additions. Generally speaking, people who are speaking in English reach to their first language when they swear, when they are agitated, and when the English language does not really capture the fuller meaning of the first language idiom.
Arellano inserts Spanish in all those cases, but also in weird and obtrusive ways such as using piernas. It’s not an idiomatic expression with more meaning than legs, it’s not a moment of agitation or an epithet. It’s just a Spanish word used instead of an English one. It’s not a word a second language speaker would struggle for either, it’s first-year vocabulary. I am fluent in Spanish, so I did not struggle with the frequent Spanish words, but even I found the frequent resorting to Spanish obtrusive and interruptive. When Arellano uses ganas instead of wanting, it makes sense. Ganas has so much more meaning and context, lust, ambition, desire…so that is smart. Piernas is just wrong. These are just two examples, but the story is riddled with Spanish used without the usual reasons of agitation, epithet, or idiomatic power.
I also struggle with how writers will toss in maricón, the homophobic epithet. It made sense in the context of this book, but was it necessary? In this book as in most of them where the writer uses this word, it seems like a permission slip to use the English epithet that would be impermissible without using the Spanish to leverage its use.
What I liked best was the obvious love Mano has for Cuba and its people. So often, books about Cuba are one-dimensional, but this one is far better than that. Yes, life is a struggle and the government is stultifying and oppressive, but it’s not paranoid. Other people really are out to get them.
Havana Libre was released today. I received an advance reading copy from the publisher through a LibraryThing drawing. It is a sequel to Havana Lunar both featuring Dr. Mano Rodriguez.
Havana Libre at Akashic Books
Robert Arellano on Facebook
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2017/12/05/9781617755835/
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