
Book Review: 'The Tilting House' is a novel about coming of age in Communist Cuba
Yuri's parents had named her after the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gargarin, hoping that one day she would grow up to be a famous female astronaut. Yuri now has vague hopes of being accepted into the Lenin school, Cuba's prestigious preparatory.
Yuri and her Aunt Ruth's quiet lives are suddenly turned upside down when an unexpected visitor from 'la Yuma' — slang for the United States — shows up at their Havana home with a camera swinging from her neck and announcing she is family. Ruth later tells Yuri that 34-year-old Mariela is her daughter, and that when Mariela was an infant she sent her to live with a family in the United States through Operation Pedro Pan, a U.S. government program in which thousands of unaccompanied children were sent from Cuba to Miami in the early 1960s.
'The Tilting House,' by Miami-based writer Ivonne Lamazares, is an affecting and sometimes amusing coming-of-age novel set in a country that few have had the opportunity to visit, despite its proximity to the U.S.
It's a study of hidden family secrets, the unhealed wound of losing a mother and the quest for home.
Lamazares, who was born in Havana, knows her homeland well, and her book is rife with description and historic detail that only someone with first-hand knowledge could provide. Lamazares left Cuba for the United States in 1989 during a period of shortages and deprivation known as 'The Special Period in Time of Peace.' Her first novel, 'The Sugar Island,' also set in Cuba, was translated into seven languages.
In 'The Tilting House,' Yuri is quickly pulled into Mariela's chaotic world and her absurd art projects, which include a tragicomic funeral for Ruth's dead dog, Lucho, in a public park using highly illegal homemade fireworks. Ruth, already viewed as suspect by the government as a member of the small Jehovah's Witnesses group, is arrested and sent to jail on unexplained charges.
Weekly
A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene.
Mariela later tells Yuri that they aren't cousins, but sisters, and that their now-dead mother gave birth to her as a teenager. Mariela insists that their Aunt Ruth 'kidnapped' her and sent her to live in the U.S., where she was raised on a farm in Nebraska.
More harebrained projects follow, and the family's tilting house finally tumbles after neighbors and acquaintances slowly chip away at the building to repurpose many of the structure's materials.
Yuri later emigrates to the U.S., where she studies and starts a career that allows her to make a return visit to the island. On that trip her past becomes clearer, and she reaches something approaching closure and forgiveness.
___
AP book reviews: https://apnews.com/hub/book-reviews
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Winnipeg Free Press
2 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Record crowd expected at Bristol for the MLB Speedway Classic between the Braves and Reds
Workers still have some finishing touches to put on the field inside the racetrack at Bristol Motor Speedway, and officials are expecting a record crowd in a week to watch the Cincinnati Reds play the Atlanta Braves in the MLB Speedway Classic on Aug. 2. 'We can't wait for next Saturday night … when that first pitch is thrown out and the stands are full,' Jerry Caldwell, Bristol's president and general manager, said Friday. 'We'll be setting records, we'll be having attendance records. We'll announcing all those details later on, but we'll be there, I know we will.' The largest crowd ever to see a baseball game was 115,300 for a March 2008 exhibition between the Red Sox and Dodgers at Los Angeles Coliseum. Bristol packed in 156,990 for the Battle of Bristol college football game in 2016. Officials showed off the work Friday with a baseball field now sitting on top of the infield inside the half-mile bullring where cars and a building once sat for NASCAR races. Murray Cook, an MLB field and stadium consultant with BrightView, said he's excited to be at this point in the process of building a ballpark. Final touches still remain for the clay along with all the padding and branding, which should be in place by Wednesday at the latest. Crews also held a light check Thursday night to make sure the Musco lights meet MLB standards. 'We've had a blast building this,' Cook said. Even though the Braves play the Reds in Cincinnati on Aug. 1, the day before the Bristol game, fans are being encouraged to settle in for the big party planned both outside and then inside the racetrack for game day. Caldwell said fans should show up by noon on game day to enjoy the attractions outside the track, including music, a 110-foot Ferris wheel, a food truck row, pitching tunnels and batting cages and team mascots. Once fans head inside, Tim McGraw and Pitbull are scheduled to perform. Demolition started in early June with heavy construction now in high gear to transform Bristol Motor Speedway into a ballpark for the first MLB game in Tennessee. This game features grandstand seating for fans along both baselines. Both teams will be wearing NASCAR-inspired uniforms with details like flames on the brim of the Braves' caps and a finish-line checkerboard for the Reds' caps. Thursdays Keep up to date on sports with Mike McIntyre's weekly newsletter. The MLB Speedway Classic also will be included in the 'MLB The Show 25' video game after an update scheduled for Tuesday. Caldwell said the project has been long in the works. 'We're … thrilled to be able to welcome everyone to Bristol and partner with Major League Baseball, the state of Tennessee and so many others to be able to pull this off,' he said. ___ AP MLB: and AP auto racing:


Toronto Star
4 hours ago
- Toronto Star
Famed Wanamaker Organ will again be heard by the public in fall art series in Philadelphia
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — One of the most famous organs in the world, which graces one of Philadelphia's favorite public spaces, was at risk of going quiet this spring when Macy's closed up shop in the city's storied Wanamaker Building. But countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, the avant-garde opera star hired last year to run Opera Philadelphia, is leading an effort to let the public again enjoy the Wanamaker Organ, a National Historic Landmark-designated treasure. The organ boasts more than 28,000 wood and metal pipes hidden behind a soaring wall of gold-leaf pipes that frame the building's seven-story marble atrium.


Winnipeg Free Press
4 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Famed Wanamaker Organ will again be heard by the public in fall art series in Philadelphia
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — One of the most famous organs in the world, which graces one of Philadelphia's favorite public spaces, was at risk of going quiet this spring when Macy's closed up shop in the city's storied Wanamaker Building. But countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, the avant-garde opera star hired last year to run Opera Philadelphia, is leading an effort to let the public again enjoy the Wanamaker Organ, a National Historic Landmark-designated treasure. The organ boasts more than 28,000 wood and metal pipes hidden behind a soaring wall of gold-leaf pipes that frame the building's seven-story marble atrium. Costanzo, with $1 million in philanthropic funding, is organizing a series of public performances this fall — including opera, ballet, theater and drag — before renovations begin next year on the building's conversion to a retail and residential hub. The first event is set for Sunday, Sept. 7. 'John Wanamaker, when he built this Grand Court, said he wanted it to be the intersection of arts and commerce, and that's why he put the world's largest pipe organ into it,' Costanzo told The Associated Press in an onsite interview Thursday evening. 'This space is operatic,' he said. 'So I thought it was a perfect umbrella to bring in every arts organization I could, and all these different collaborators.' The organ was made for the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis. Wanamaker, a successful merchant and civic leader, had it moved to his new emporium next to City Hall in 1909 and then hired a crew of 40 pipe makers to enlarge it so the sound filled the vast space. A decade later, famed conductor Leopold Anthony Stokowski performed there with the Philadelphia Orchestra as 15,000 people crowded into the great hall and mezzanines. With the merchandise now gone, the acoustics rival those of the great cathedrals, Costanzo said. 'The organ for the first time is in perfect cathedral acoustic condition, so it will be the best way to hear this instrument in the history of the space, because there's actually nothing in there,' he said. The building's new owner hopes to continue to incorporate art and culture into their plans, which include retail on the lower floors and office and residential space above. The organ adds unique challenges. 'You've got this organ music going in the grand atrium, but meanwhile you've got other uses on these upper floors looking into that space, so you have to figure out how to make that work for everybody,' said Jon McMillan, a senior vice president of TF Cornerstone, the New York-based development firm. Local civic groups, in an announcement Friday, said they hope to raise funds to bring back one of the city's most beloved annual events, a holiday light show that drew generations of families to the store. Costanzo, who continues to perform around the world, believes he can build enthusiasm for the arts by bringing it to the places where people gather, including the Wanamaker Building. And he hopes that, in turn, will help people find a way to connect with each other. 'This space is so deeply embedded in the emotion of Philadelphia,' Costanzo said. 'I want them to come to Wanamaker and discover something they've never seen before.'