A review by shelikeswaves
Memory Mambo by Achy Obejas
4.0
Of all the Caribbean literature I've read this term, it is this, this odd, disturbing, frustrating novel, which has had the greatest impact on me.
I'd like to think that it isn't because I identify with the narrator; Juani Casas, twenty four years old, Cuban-American, lesbian, terminally incapable of taking a stand about anything in her life. Juani leads the reader through a tangled web of memory, family, politics and sexuality, paying attention to all the wrong things and striking out at those around her in her attempts to uncover a truth that may or may not exist. She's infuriating, unable to fully emphathise with the other characters, unable to drag herself out of the rut she's in.
And yet, Obejas draws me in, Juani's impossible dance speaking to something within me which I would prefer to ignore. The sense of displacement and suspension in the novel is really striking; the narrator is caught between two nations, between love and frustration, between family and her desire for truth. There is no real resolution here, just a hurricane of doubt and anger puctuated by the occasional calm of sensuality, or by the urgency of sex, or by distrubing power strugles.
A moving, honest and intruiging look at questions of sexuality, nationality, and identity.
I'd like to think that it isn't because I identify with the narrator; Juani Casas, twenty four years old, Cuban-American, lesbian, terminally incapable of taking a stand about anything in her life. Juani leads the reader through a tangled web of memory, family, politics and sexuality, paying attention to all the wrong things and striking out at those around her in her attempts to uncover a truth that may or may not exist. She's infuriating, unable to fully emphathise with the other characters, unable to drag herself out of the rut she's in.
And yet, Obejas draws me in, Juani's impossible dance speaking to something within me which I would prefer to ignore. The sense of displacement and suspension in the novel is really striking; the narrator is caught between two nations, between love and frustration, between family and her desire for truth. There is no real resolution here, just a hurricane of doubt and anger puctuated by the occasional calm of sensuality, or by the urgency of sex, or by distrubing power strugles.
A moving, honest and intruiging look at questions of sexuality, nationality, and identity.