Book Review: NEXT YEAR IN HAVANA by Chanel Cleeton. Penguin Random House LLC, 2018.
Read & reviewed by Jane Mack, July 2022.
This novel weaves between two love stories. One is set in Cuba in 1958-59 and the other in Cuba and Miami in 2017.
SPOILER ALERT.
This book review reveals many plot points better experienced in the first reading of the novel.
Elisa’s Story Begins
The novel opens with a glimpse of Cuba 1958, through the eyes of Elisa Perez. She is a nineteen year-old beauty and one of four daughters of a wealthy sugar baron. Cuban life for her is full of parties and shopping, sheltered days at the Perez beach-side mansion, and endless conversations and plans with her best friend and neighbor, Ana. It can be stifling.
The four sugar queens, daughters of Emilio Perez, are Isabel, the oldest, Beatriz, the most adventurous, Elisa, the story main character, and Maria, the youngest.
Elisa sneaks out with older sisters to attend a party in a different part of town. Her sister Beatriz drives the car; a friend of a friend of her sister Isabel’s boyfriend hosts the party. At the party, Elisa meets Pablo. He’s graduated from law school, but now spends his time supporting the activities and ambitions of his college friend, Fidel Castro. The story unfolds gradually, with the unlikely love between a Batista-supporting sugar baron’s daughter, and a revolutionary supporter of Castro.
We learn that Emilio Perez has already disowned his only son, Alejandro, Elisa’s brother and twin to Beatriz, for anti-Batista activities. Alejandro hides in the background of the story, with information he shares at times with his sisters, while he opposes both Castro and Batista, but works for change in Cuban politics.
The political divide fractured the family and tested Elisa’s life. Despite the tension, her love for Pablo grows. As the revolution heats up, her fear deepens.
Marisol’s Story Begins
Marisol is the granddaughter of Elisa Perez Ferrera. Fidel Castro died November 25, 2016, and Elisa died after that. By January 2017, Marisol is flying to Cuba to spread her grandmother’s ashes, according to her wishes.
Marisol has grown up in Miami, Florida. Cuba is her home from the dreams and stories she’s heard all her life from her grandmother, Elisa, who raised her. Marisol has had a comfortable life. Her great-grandfather, Emilio Perez rebuilt the family wealth upon the family exile to America. Marisol, college-educated and working as a journalist, intends to connect with her Cuban roots, and walk the streets and relive the stories she has heard all her life.
Before she left Miami for Cuba, her Aunts Beatriz and Maria warned Marisol to be careful. Marisol intends to smuggle in Elisa’s ashes as they may not otherwise be permitted, but to do nothing to attract attention to herself. Her aunts are concerned that Fidel’s successor, his brother Raul Castro, has a long memory and the Perez family’s support for Batista may still rankle. The aunts also give her names and addresses of people to contact who might help her find the right place where to spread her grandmother’s ashes.
Upon arrival, she passes through customs as a journalist on a story about the possible re-opening of ties or tourism between America and Cuba. Welcomed at the airport by Luis Rodriguez, grandson of Ana, she finds Cuba romantically captivating and politically confusing. Marisol, for all her family’s anti-Castro political activism in Miami, has never been political herself. She’s more interested in her roots that grew love and food and music in her Cuban family.
Parallel Love Stories-Elisa
As Elisa’s attachment to Pablo grows and develops, we see Cuba divided between those who want stability at any cost and those who want and need change. Batista is killing everyone he catches that he suspects is undermining his regime. Emilio Perez stays firmly in the Batista camp. Beatriz especially worries about the fate of her twin, Alejandro.
Elisa worries about Pablo. When news comes every day, Elisa listens. Pablo moves between Havana, where he unites with Elisa, and the mountains and rural villages, where he fights alongside Fidel. Everyone in her family is so preoccupied with the turbulence around them that her affair goes mostly unnoticed, except by Beatriz and by her best friend, Ana.
Parallel Love Stories-Marisol
Marisol, in modern Cuba, stays with Ana Rodriguez and her family. There is her daughter-in-law, Caridad. And there is Cristina, who introduces herself as Luis’s wife. All of them work in the palador (home restaurant) that helps support Ana and her family. Luis also works there, both waiting tables and playing saxophone in lilting Cuban rhythms.
Marisol seeks out a place to scatter her grandmother’s ashes. Luis frequently acts as escort, as arranged by Ana, so Marisol can see the country. Luis is also a history professor and excellent tour guide. The attachment grows between them, but Marisol tries to tamp it down, guard herself, reminding herself again and again that he is married.
Eventually, she learns that Luis and Cristina are divorced; that Cristina stays on at Ana’s home because she has no where else to go and Cuba is too expensive for most ordinary people. Cuba suffers economically. People have food, but not enough; people have housing, but it is dilapidated and crumbling without resources for upkeep. People drive cars, but they are old. No matter how much the people work, they cannot seem to get enough or get ahead. There is a secret, but growing desire for capitalism rather than Soviet socialism adopted under Castro’s regime; this is reflected in an active black market.
The Tension-the Disconnect
As Marisol falls in love with Luis, she also learns more about her grandmother, Elisa and her love of a revolutionary. Ana turned over a box with letters and other treasures that Elisa had buried in the yard before leaving Cuba. What Marisol learns seems so shocking given her grandmother’s fondness for her husband, the grandfather Marisol barely remembers. Marisol also finds it incomprehensible, given her grandmother’s anti-Castro sentiments and activities in Miami. She feels pangs of regret that she never knew her grandmother Elisa better during Elisa’s life. Marisol feels confused about the family history and whether it is proud or shameful. She experiences both curiosity and reluctance as she dives into Elisa’s secret life. She wears her grandmother’s ring from the secret stash that Ana has saved for her.
Luis, in his turn, leads a secret life, too. He is fascinated with Marisol’s writing career because he, too, writes. He posts anti-Castro opinions on a pseudonymous blog. At times, we get the sense that men are following Marisol and Luis around Cuba. Two men appear at both the tourist spots and the hidden Cuba neighborhoods where Luis takes Marisol. A cloak of danger spreads around Marisol and infects her mood and mental processes, coming from both her grandmother’s past and her current experience of Cuba.
Political Power Exercised
In the past, Alejandro gets word to Elisa that Pablo has been captured by Batista’s men and held in the prison where men are tortured and killed. Elisa can do nothing but appeal to her father. She begs him to help Pablo, never revealing her intimate relationship, but saying Pablo is a good man, a lawyer, mistakenly accused. Emilio Perez elicits a promise from Elisa to never see Pablo again; and then uses his connections. Pablo is freed. Elisa ignores her promises and joins him again. By late 1958, she is pregnant with Pablo’s child.
Meanwhile in the contemporary story, Marisol witnesses Raul Castro’s police take Luis into custody. Unknown men abduct Marisol shortly afterwards and take her to an interview. She meets, for the first time, her grandfather, Pablo. Marisol hadn’t known that her Miami Ferrer grandfather wasn’t her father’s biological dad, but she sees in the old man Luis some of her father’s gestures and features. Luis, too, recognizes the ring and confirms that Marisol is truly Elisa’s granddaughter. He sees the resemblance, but also says she looks like his mother in some ways. He tells her Luis has been taken to the same jail, where men await torture and death. It is his turn to return the favor to the Perez’s. At Marisol’s request, he helps secure the release of Luis.
The Resolution
The past: Elisa waits for Pablo, but Guillermo comes instead. He tells her that Pablo was killed in battle. She can do nothing, but follow her family as they leave Cuba for Miami. There she meets and marries her Ferrer husband, who is father to her son and savior of her reputation. She never learns that Pablo is still alive, although her father, Emilio does. Pablo travels to America with an expedition of Cuban diplomats and makes a side-trip. When Pablo learns that Elisa is married and has a child, he returns to Cuba, where he eventually settles in with his own family and role in the revolutionary government.
The present: Marisol has no time to make decisions. Luis will be killed if he doesn’t leave Cuba. He finally agrees. Cristina warns Marisol that Luis’s love is always going to be Cuba and that Marisol will be second in line for his attention and commitment; Marisol wants to save his life and take her chances. They escape successfully and make their way to Miami, again with the help of the Perez fortunes and aircraft, waiting for them in Antigua.
A final scene with Beatriz and then a look at Luis acclimating. The title of the book, Next Year in Havana, is the rallying cry of Cuban exiles in Miami. The novel ends with Ojalá, meaning “hopefully.”
My Analysis
I really liked reading this story for many reasons. The characters seem real. The writing is beautiful. The plotting is careful and the pacing is perfect. The story unfolds in both timelines in meaningful ways that help elaborate the themes and developments.
Politics is in everything is one statement of theme. But the theme could just as easily be that money talks, or that it’s not what you know but who you know. The power of wealth is evident throughout the novel. There is little to no apology for the Perez wealth and the influence it carries. Without it, Luis would not be saved. Without it, Pablo would not be saved. These story-points almost rise up to justify the incredible disparity of wealth.
The discomfort that the disparity of wealth causes the poor, the hungry, the desperate, is also depicted, but not from the standpoint of a main character. It is in the background. It affects others. It’s ugly. It’s unpleasant. But the novel sidesteps the harsher realities.
That Castro’s Cuba did not bring prosperity to all is clear. There is no mention that capitalism and America has not brought prosperity to all.
The lens of wealth is one of distortion. I recommend reading the novel and enjoying the historical details, the issues raised, and the perspectives shared. I also recommend considering the themes and ideas from your own perspectives and in light of larger history. Many voices, telling different aspects of the same story, help enrich the tapestry of narratives. Single narratives without the rich depth of diversity present the danger of untruth. So I would say don’t take this as a single narrative explaining the full truth. Enjoy it as one of the voices that helps color the full picture.