The Tower of the Antilles

May 1, 2017
Questions of personal and national identity percolate through the stories in Obejas’s (Ruins) memorable short fiction collection, most of which is set in Cuba, the author’s birthplace. In “The Cola of Oblivion,” a family of Cuban nationals try to cajole the American daughter of a counterrevolutionary relative into a contrived scheme to help them emigrate by claiming her family has a moral obligation to them. “Supermán” is the tale of a Cuban sex worker whose unbridled libido is equated with the freewheeling spirit of the prerevolutionary nation. The narrator of “The Maldives,” who grew up in overcrowded familial living arrangements in Cuba, decides to move to an underpopulated location when she is diagnosed with a brain tumor that will eventually “leave me trapped in my own body.” Some of the stories are more collections of impressions than straightforward narratives, but all are distinguished by the author’s skill at fixing their moments in piquant imagery: for example, a character in “Waters” says of her acclimation to the simmering climate of Cuba, “I am as comfortable in this state of humidity, as at home in it as if I were in amniotic fluid.” These 10 stories show Obejas’s talent, illuminating Cuban culture and the innermost lives of her characters.

July 1, 2017

The stories in this new collection from prolific Cuban American author and translator Obejas read more like records or testimonies than traditional narratives, and they're tied together by the ennui and hopelessness of the characters, with the author offering no conclusions. For narrator Dulce, "The Sound Catalog" is a list of sounds and the memories they invoke of Cuba and her ex-lovers. In "The Maldives," a Cuban woman gets an American visa from her estranged father only to find out she has a brain tumor. She plans, very matter-of-factly, a final solo trip to the Maldives. "Cola of Oblivion" also shows off Obejas's wit and sense of tragic irony, as a woman referred to as only "the visitor" eats dinner with her mother's cousin, who simultaneously berates the mother for leaving Cuba without sending gifts back and pleads with the visitor to help them get to America. "Waters" describes a trip home by an expat author, who is asked accusingly whether she dreams in Spanish or English. VERDICT While not exactly pleasant to read, Obejas's stories demonstrate an acute understanding of being caught between two places and cultures as different as America and Cuba. A nice addition to libraries that serve immigrant communities.--Kate Gray, Boston P.L., MA

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2017
By turns searing and subtly magical, the stories in Obejas' vividly imagined collection are propelled by her characters' contradictory feelings about and unnerving experiences in Cuba. A Cuban American family visiting relatives on the island faces gaps in language, class, and expectations. A Cuban with a visa is paralyzed at the thought of all the Cubans who cannot leave. Some tales are charged with besieged eroticism and danger, as in Kimberle, in which a bookish woman gives shelter to a wild, suicidal woman who drives her to the very brink. In Superman, Enrique becomes rich and famous for his seemingly mystical control over his enormous penis. For all the human tumult and deftly sketched and reverberating historical and cultural contexts that Obejas incisively creates in these poignant, alarming tales, she also offers lyrical musings on the mysteries of the sea and the vulnerability of islands and the body. Obejas' plots are ambushing, her characters startling, her metaphors fresh, her humor caustic, and her compassion potent in these intricate and haunting stories of displacement, loss, stoicism, and realization.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)