The Book of Lost Saints

Starred review from September 30, 2019
A ghost of the Cuban revolution haunts the pages of this vivid and emotional literary fantasy from Older (Shadowhouse Fall). Marisol Aragones died after Castro gained power and the Cuban revolution turned sour, but she can’t remember how or why. Now a disembodied spirit in early-2000s New Jersey, with only a tenuous foothold in the land of the living, her one hope for piecing together her past is through her nephew, Ramon. Marisol spends her days observing—and criticizing—Ramon’s work as a hospital security guard and DJ and his hopeless feelings for his no-strings-attached fling, Aliceana Mendoza. At night, she infiltrates his dreams to give him visions of what little she remembers of her life during the revolution. These dreams send Ramon on a quest to uncover long-buried family secrets, dragging a difficult truth from his mother and traveling with Aliceana to Cuba, where the resistance works against the government in secret. Older’s descriptions of Cuba, both past and present, are thoroughly transportive. This moving story of family and freedom is sure to captivate readers.

Sofia Quintero's performance of this audiobook is compelling. Listeners are drawn into her first-person portrayal of Marisol, who encourages her nephew, Ram�n, to solve a mystery with a twist: Marisol died during the Cuban Revolution, and Ram�n is living in present-day New Jersey. Listeners come to know Marisol's ghost, particularly her empathetic voice, which Quintero effectively provides. Ram�n--by day a hospital orderly, by night a club DJ--comes to discover his heritage, eventually making his way to Cuba with the help of Marisol's spiritual interventions, seeking answers about his life and Marisol's death. The journey is complicated, but Quintero's performance skillfully places listeners in the locales of revolution-era Cuba and its contemporary--yet segregated and bureaucratic--counterpart. S.P.C. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award � AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine