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 enlarge | Author: Cecilia Samartin
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
Buy New: $6.80
You Save: $7.20 (51%)
New (30) Used (17) from $5.58
Avg. Customer Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 409461
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 368
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.3 x 1.2
ISBN: 1416550399
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9781416550396
ASIN: 1416550399
Publication Date: February 19, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Great Read! February 12, 2008
I really enjoyed this novel. I really got involved with the characters.
You laugh, you cry- nothing is missing. Delightful. It would make
a great movie.
 From paradise to hell to paradise to hell and back again October 30, 2007
A heartbreaking story of communist Cuba
Beautifully written novel filled with metaphors. Nora, the narrator, forever reflects on her life in the medium of dreams. Alicia's life is always filled with metaphors, specifically in her letters to Nora. Follow the sad story of Alicia, who is left behind in Cuba. Marrying a handsome communist, birthing his handicapped baby, and then resorting to prostitution in hopes of escaping poverty. Alicia is afraid of losing her baby to the state. She is ever hopeful that her handsome husband will be released from prison. She befriends a guard with food, cigarettes, and sex just to preserve her husband. (Why is his release taking so long?) Alicia relies on the companionship of a prostitute friend.
Meanwhile, cousin Nora is living a "normal" American life. Yes, Nora and sister, Marta, struggle to adjust, but they have an easy life, esp compared to Alicia's. Alicia conveys her pain in beautiful letters filled with emotions, metaphors, and hope. Perhaps the saddest loss is that of Alicia's precious beach, a beach where she communicated with GOD.
What happens when Nora leaves behind her middle class life, husband included, to help Alicia? Will Nora adjust to the poverty in Havana? What exactly is wrong with Alicia and her child? And how will Nora reconcile her allegiance to native country and family with her "American marriage"? What type of love comes first? That to an Anglo spouse, or to an impoverished prostitute cousin? Samartin doesn't coat the finale in flan, you'll won't be able to stop reading once you read of Nora's adventures in the Atlantic Ocean. Only at the very end can we breathe a sigh of relief... for... Nora? Alicia? Alicia's child? Read and find out!
(Warning- Description of a Santeria ritual, spirit communication, etc. DO NOT try any of this! It is EVIL. I'm disappointed that Samartin would have to include the ritual.)
As good as that other summer blockbuster... June 14, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I read this book immediately after finishing Hosseini's "A Thousand Splendid Suns" and can honestly say that I enjoyed it just as much. The tragedy that is Cuba is heartbreaking. I have a new understanding of the people who risk their lives and leave their beloved country to come to America. Samartin wrote a beautiful, lyrical, magical novel. Kudos to her!
An Impressive Literary Debut Devoted To The Cuban Revolution's Legacy March 19, 2007
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
Cecilia Samartin's "Broken Paradise: A Novel" is one of the most impressive literary debuts in contemporary mainstream fiction that I've had the pleasure of reading. Its vivid, emotionally visceral tale of two cousins tragically separated during the 1959 Cuban Revolution's bloody, violent aftermath may be one of the most riveting explorations of humanity dealing with adversity since the original publication of Frank McCourt's best-selling memoir "Angela's Ashes". But I think most readers will identify more closely with Isabel Allende's splendid fiction, than Frank's superb literary memoir, and indeed, Cecilia Samartin is a fresh, newly minted Latin American writer worthy of comparison to Allende. Moreover, like Allende, Samartin has drawn extensively, from her own family history in telling such a beguiling, poignant tale. On a more personal note I am indebted to one of Samartin's editors, Amy Tannenbaum, for bringing her splendid literary debut to my attention.
Samartin offers a lyrical, quite descriptive, portrayal of middle class life in Havana, Cuba in the years prior to the 1959 Cuban Revolution. Her elegant prose and storytelling craft is at its best chronicling the extended family to which Nora Garcia and her cousin Alicia belong. She is almost as successful in describing Nora's sudden, unexpected departure to - and her new life in - the United States, as well as the unspeakable calamities which beset her relatives immediately after Fidel Castro's public declaration of his keen interest in and enthusiastic embrace of Communism. Regrettably Samartin's impressive literary talents are greatly diminished in the final chapters of her engrossing novel, offering a structurally weak set of circumstances which will reunite Nora with her cousin Alicia, clearly demonstrating that Alicia's life has been far from idyllic in the new "worker's paradise" that is Fidel Castro's Cuba. However, her rather conventional means of resolving loose plot ends ultimately doesn't dissuade me from regarding Samartin's novel as an impressive literary debut from an important new voice in Latin American literature. Surely Samartin's magnificient, elegant prose and fine storytelling is destined to win her a devout band of fans, who will be as eager to read her next novel as I most certainly am. I have no doubt that hers will be regarded as one of the most important literary debuts of this year.
Stunning story March 9, 2007
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
Author Cecilia Samartin was born in Havana, Cuba in 1961 in the midst of the revolution. Her parents emigrated to America while she was a baby, and Samartin grew up in Los Angeles as a fully bicultural, bilingual American. In this her first novel, Samartin writes about her homeland, gracefully describing both the island's glory days and its devastating collapse after the revolution.
Samartin tells the story of two cousins, Nora and Alicia who grow up to lead very different lives. Alicia's exotic beauty makes her the center of attention, sometimes to Nora's dismay and sometimes amusement. The cousins are inseparable until Nora's family leaves Cuba for exile in America.
As Nora leaves, her family's maid, Beba, asks her to only show her "ghost heart" to the United States, hoping this will protect Nora's real heart so that she never forgets her identity or beautiful homeland. And although Nora doesn't completely understand Beba, she never forgets that simple request.
The cousins exchange letters throughout the years. Nora's speak of her education and her struggle to bring her Cuban heritage into her American life while Alicia's letters describe the delicate situation in Havana, her husband's arrest and her baby's illness.
It soon becomes clear that Alicia is also ill, and when she can no longer care for her family alone, Nora returns to Havana. What Nora finds in her hometown breaks her real heart, and here is where Samartin's gift for writing truly shines. Every place Nora remembers is in shocking disrepair, Alicia's health is quickly failing, and her niece, Lucinda, cannot receive needed medical treatment. When Nora and Alicia reunite with Beba, the three of women work together to protect Lucinda and, ultimately, to carry the young girl to America.
Throughout Nora's entire journey, Samartin's narrative is so clear and emotional that you will forget this is fiction. Instead, you are transported to those terrifying days of the early Cuban revolution.
Armchair Interviews says: Your heart will stretch with Nora's and Alicia's as the story unfolds.
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