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Nabaza.net-The MarketPlace - Telex from Cuba: A Novel
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List Price: $25.00
Our Price: $16.50
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Manufacturer: Scribner
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9781416561033
ISBN: 141656103X
Label: Scribner
Manufacturer: Scribner
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 336
Publication Date: 2008-07-01
Publisher: Scribner
Studio: Scribner
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Editorial Reviews:
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Rachel Kushner has written an astonishingly wise, ambitious, and riveting novel set in the American community in Cuba during the years leading up to Castro's revolution -- a place that was a paradise for a time and for a few. The first novel to tell the story of the Americans who were driven out in 1958, this is a masterful debut. Young Everly Lederer and K. C. Stites come of age in Oriente Province, where the Americans tend their own fiefdom -- three hundred thousand acres of United Fruit Company sugarcane that surround their gated enclave. If the rural tropics are a child's dreamworld, Everly and K.C. nevertheless have keen eyes for the indulgences and betrayals of the grown-ups around them -- the mordant drinking and illicit loves, the race hierarchies and violence. In Havana, a thousand kilometers and a world away from the American colony, a cabaret dancer meets a French agitator named Christian de La Mazière, whose seductive demeanor can't mask his shameful past. Together they become enmeshed in the brewing political underground. When Fidel and Raúl Castro lead a revolt from the mountains above the cane plantation, torching the sugar and kidnapping a boat full of "yanqui" revelers, K.C. and Everly begin to discover the brutality that keeps the colony humming. Though their parents remain blissfully untouched by the forces of history, the children hear the whispers of what is to come. At the time, urgent news was conveyed by telex. Kushner's first novel is a tour de force, haunting and compelling, with the urgency of a telex from a forgotten time and place.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Paradise unaware
Comment: The political landscape of Cuba throughout the 1950's was strewn with opportunists, dreamers, mercenaries and would be rulers. Sequestered in their "American" colony of Oriente Province, employees of United Fruit Company are removed from the political intrigues of Havana and the political turmoil bubbling just under the surface. Players from opposite social and political specterms are drawn to each other. Hearing the rumblings and whispers, the children of the UFC begin to explore the world outside their carefully tended cocoon as the adults turn a more determinedly blind eye towards the political threat. Parties are given as if to flaunt the American's immunity and supposed indifference towards the Cubans.
Even in their favored position, the Americans suffer from the same everyday misfortunes....infiledity. drunkenness, wayward children, crime, ill-fated loves and social shunning. The Cubans who intersect their lives give only a hint of the Cuba that lies just outside the gates. Familiar names Raul Castro, Baptista, and Fidel Castro as well as those unknown....a French mercenary, a bar girl, the houseboy of one of the "Yaquis" the cane field workers all have a stake in the struggle and are determined to survive. The son of the UFC walks away from his life of comfort to throw his lot with the rebels striking the first blow. Then the cane field is set ablaze. No matter how determined the merrymaking, the Americans begin to suspect their lives are changing, the carefully tended façade of normalcy is beginning to slip.
Author Rachel Kushner's mother grew up in the American enclave of Oriente Province and lived the expatriate lifestyle growing up. The rich and varied characters of Telex from Cuba are vivid and alive. The different story lines weave and accelerate until the inevitable collision and conclusion are reached. A satisfying read.
Customer Rating:
Summary: This book has a permanent place on my bookshelves
Comment: I imagine most bibliophiles remember when and how their love of books began. My affair started in second grade with a set of orangy-yellow cloth covered biographies of all the presidents up to that time. The only illustration in each book was a woodcut profile of the president. Since then, I've read thousands of books, some of which have been so special they leave a lasting impression. Rachel Kushner's Telex from Cuba is one such book.
As other reviewers have noted, Ms. Kushner chose to tell the story of Americans in pre-Castro, pre-revolution Cuba, through the eyes of the children of American executives (who, by the way, knew their own limitations--they'd have nothing comparable to their Cuban jobs in the States). We also see much through the perspective of the women. This is effective because children often question what they see with an innocence that has long been lost on many adults. And what better way to convey the social morays of that period than through the actions of women who followed their husbands to exotic places and who raised their children there. The social constraints of these women are perfectly captured in the book which would explain why some of the women drank--after all, alcohol dulls the senses. Women haven't always been so free!
Each family in the book has it's own dynamic and Ms. Kushner perfectly captures the nuances within that dynamic, including a pet monkey. It fascinated me that Ms. Kushner even understood and described perfectly that poor little monkey's frustration! As others have mentioned, she also captures the dynamics of a zazou dancer, Rachel K, based on a real person and Christian de la Maziere, a former Nazi who is first and foremost an arms dealer. Without preaching, through the eyes of the children and the adults, we also get a realistic glimpse of how unfairly the workers were treated at the cane field and the nickel factory--it was virtually modern day "slavery" something akin to what seasonal farm workers endure today, perhaps?
This book clearly has a story line but for those seeking plot driven stories, this book may or may not work. But for those who like pictures painted with words and for those who prefer character driven stories, then this book will be a real treat. It is IMHO a five star-plus book and it will always be on my bookshelf.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The High Price Paid for Freedom
Comment: Rachel Kushner provides a first person glimpse into life on the island of Cuba in the late 1950s and early 1960s right up to the Cuban revolution. The book focuses on the lives of a privileged set of Americans who work for the United Fruit Company. Their upper class life of opulence separates them from the main Cuban islanders whose lives are also described very well. There are unique characters and experiences that are told from the perspective of Everly Lederer who is a preteen boy that grows up fast. Changing politics and circumstances force him to view life from his own personal vantage point as well as that of the ordinairy workers, both servants and cane workers. As time progresses, he learns to see life from multiple viewpoints. The sharp contrast between the lives of the ordinairy Cubans who eke out a meager living with whatever jobs they can master.compared to the managers and executives of the United Fruit Company is very well brought forth in this novel.
The author describes various worlds that all all reside side-by-side in Cuba. She describes the life of Rachel K a carbaret dancer who is friends with the Cuban President Batista as well as revolutionaries to be ...There is a fascinating relationship which develops between Rachel and Christian de La Maziére a Frenchman who seems to turn up everywhere there is political agitation. He had flown over from Haiti where a revolution had just toppled the previous regime. As political tensions rise on the island of Cuba, the various enclaves sense their way of life will forever be altered. The author provides an interesting twist in the story when the eldest son of the main exectutive of the United Fruit Company, Everly's brother, joins the revolutionaries in the mountains. Father and son are divided into two different political camps. The author completes the story as the revolution unfolds and the Americans escape from the island. This book is a fascinating glimpse into a historical period which changed the lives of a whole island of people. Through revolution, the Cubans had great hope for achieving a better way of life, rather than being laborers for a large American company where they had little choice... instead they became enslaved by a political way of life which stole their freedom in other ways. Erika Borsos [pepper flower]
Customer Rating:
Summary: Promising Start
Comment: There have been several novels about Cuba of late. This, however, was the first I had seen from the perspective of the Americans living and working on the island in the '50's before Castro took over.
The novel had an interesting start. The first narrator was a 14 year old son of the sugar cane plantation's manager. The next was an 11 year old daughter of a lower American executive of a nickel mine. They gave the fresh and naive look of youth. Especially intriguing was the dropped information that the manager's older son had left to fight with Castro.
After that, it was all downhill. The narrative was taken out of the hands of these two youth (although it occasionally returned). The remaining characters were extremely stereotypical. Most of the men were adulterers and the women drunks. The one woman who seeemed to care about the plight of Cubans was portrayed as a shallow do-gooder (at one point she is described as treating only the symptoms while never looking for a cure). Even the weapons dealer, who had great potential as a demonic stirrer of revolutions, fell flat.
There was very little tension. The Americans all lived in secure enclaves. When they were evacuated, the portrayal was all matter of fact and emotionless. One minute they were partying, the next they were on a boat. The son of the cane plantation manager (the highest executive on the island) who ran off with Castro, had great potential to produce some tension. All through the book I kept hoping to hear about him.
However, all we hear in the beginning of the book is that he left. In the epilogue, fifty years later, he is in Florida selling real estate.
The book started well-written. Unfortunately, later it seemed the author became more interested in the writing than the characters. The wordsmithing was still very good, but the novel lost traction.
All-in-all, the perspective was interesting, the writing was good, but the book as a whole was just mediocre.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Cuba as we never knew it
Comment: Rachel Kushner's `Telex from Cuba' is a clear and sharp snapshot of a long-lost time and place. Set in 1950's pre-revolutionary Cuba, the novel portrays the island and its people as a complex, multi-layered world.
Americans may, on first glance, relate to their compatriots working for the United Fruit Company - strangers in a strange land, they live comfortable lives much better than they would `at home in the States,' and it is only when the reader is guided below the surface that he sees that their emphasis on class and property and their lack of moral focus mirrors that of the island.
Our guides and the chief observers of American/Cuban life are two American children - KC Stites, who is narrating from the vantage of old age, and Everly Lederer, an uneasy, intelligent girl. And in the tradition of child protagonists, each reveals much more than they understand. But despite their limited understanding, the adult reader soon has a firm grasp of the moral depravity and social problems of the American community and Cuban life.
Perhaps the weakest part of the novel is the foray into Havana, where the tone becomes more that of a spy novel; the pacing and mood change, but the message remains the same - each encounter, each interaction between characters mirrors the connection between classes and individuals. Cuba is changing and it is time that it did. But the question remains, will life on the island be any different for the people who live there?
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