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The Distant Marvels, by Chantel Acevedo
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Maria Sirena tells stories. She does it for money—she was a favorite in the cigar factory where she worked as a lettora—and for love, spinning gossamer tales out of her own past for the benefit of friends, neighbors, and family. But now, like a modern-day Scheherazade, she will be asked to tell one last story so that eight women can keep both hope and themselves alive.
Cuba, 1963. Hurricane Flora, one of the deadliest hurricanes in recorded history, is bearing down on the island. Seven women have been forcibly evacuated from their homes and herded into the former governor’s mansion, where they are watched over by another woman, a young soldier of Castro’s new Cuba named Ofelia. Outside the storm is raging and the floodwaters are rising. In a single room on the top floor of the governor’s mansion, Maria Sirena begins to tell the incredible story of her childhood during Cuba’s Third War of Independence; of her father Augustin, a ferocious rebel; of her mother, Lulu, an astonishing woman who fought, loved, dreamed, and suffered as fiercely as her husband. Stories, however, have a way of taking on a life of their own, and transported by her story’s momentum, Maria Sirena will reveal more about herself than she or anyone ever expected.
Chantel Acevedo’s The Distant Marvels is an epic adventure tale, a family saga, a love story, a stunning historical account of armed struggle against oppressors, and a long tender plea for forgiveness. It is, finally, a life-affirming novel about the kind of love that lasts a lifetime and the very art of storytelling itself.
- Sales Rank: #491758 in Books
- Published on: 2015-04-07
- Released on: 2015-04-07
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.40" h x .89" w x 5.50" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 304 pages
Review
"A major, uniquely powerful, and startlingly beautiful novel that should bring Acevedo’s name to the top echelon of this generation’s writers." — Booklist (Starred Review)
"Irresistible moments of rebellion and bravery define this tale. Perfect timing for a Scheherazade-style account of Cuban history." — Kirkus (Starred Review)
“As Hurricane Flora blows past Fidel Castro's new Cuba, Acevedo's heartbreaking and humane novel comes to a memorable conclusion.” — Publishers Weekly
"Chantel Acevedo [...] has achieved a rich and engrossing portrayal of life in her ancestral Cuba." — The Philadelphia Inquirer
"A modern riff on Scheherazade that celebrates the art of the story."— BookRiot
"Acevedo's prose has an endearingly relaxed feel-like she's sitting across from you and telling the tale." — OZY
“Chantel Acevedo is one of the most versatile and exciting writers of her generation, with a voice that speaks not only to the American experience, but to our universal humanity. I fall for her characters, whole-heartedly, while being covetous of her stunning prose.”
— JULIANNA BAGGOTT, author of the Pure trilogy
“Exquisitely rendered . . . The Distant Marvels is a Thousand and One Nights-style surrender to the true art of story telling.”
—ANA CASTILLO, author of The Guardians
“The Distant Marvels is a compelling, gorgeously-written epic about Cuban women as fierce as the storms and the hardships they endure. Every scene, every detail, every utterance and intimacy feels richly, enchantingly true.”
—CRISTINA GARCIA, author of Dreaming in Cuban
“I loved The Distant Marvels . . . Acevedo’s language is liquid and gathering, mirroring the great ebb and swell of political struggle, transcending love, as well as the events that have gathered the storyteller, María Sirena, and her audience together under one brilliantly constructed ‘roof.’”
—RU FREEMAN, author of On Sal Mal Lane
“The Distant Marvels is lush and captivating . . . The women in these pages survive to tell their tales, and oh, what wondrous stories they are.”
—MARIE MANILLA, author of The Patron Saint of Ugly
“Chantel Acevedo brilliantly conveys the dual nature of the stories we tell ourselves, which achieve grace and transformation through tempestuous churning. The Distant Marvels, like love itself, is both storm and shelter at once.”
—JUSTIN TORRES, author of We the Animals
"With enchanting novels such as A Falling Star and The Distant Marvels, Acevedo hovers between poetry and prose, romance and history, nostalgia and modern life."
—MARGARITA ENGLE, author of The Surrender Tree
“Love and Ghost Letters is enchanting; a heartfelt story…It captures, beautifully, the atmosphere and emotions of a time which, both Cuban Americans and many an American reader, will find both reminiscent and fulfilling. A great debut.”
—OSCAR HIJUELOS, author of The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, on Love and Ghost Letters
About the Author
Chantel Acevedo was born in Miami to Cuban parents. She is the author of A Falling Star (Carolina Wren Press, 2014), winner of the Doris Bakwin Award; and, Love and Ghost Letters (St. Martins, 2006), winner of the Latino International Book Award. She is currently an Associate Professor of English at Auburn University, Alabama, where she founded the Auburn Writers Conference and edits the Southern Humanities Review.
Most helpful customer reviews
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful.
“Love, in its full measure, is a kind of swirling tempest, and in its eye, there is stillness and comfort and peace."
By Mary Whipple
(4.5 stars) It is 1963, as the novel opens, and the devastating Hurricane Flora, “bigger than all of Cuba,” is now lashing the island, having already caused devastation throughout Haiti, where it killed five thousand people. Main character Maria Sirena, age eighty-two, has been forcibly evacuated from her small seaside house and, with seven other women, taken to safety on the top floor of Casa Diego Velazquez, the sixteenth century home of the first governor of Cuba, now a museum. For the couple of days, Maria Sirena rides out the storm with these seven other refugees at the Casa Velazquez, keeping her companions occupied with stories from her own life and the lives of her parents and grandparents as they lived through Cuba’s various wars for independence from the late nineteenth century to 1963.
Author Chantel Acevedo, a second-generation Cuban American, focuses intently on the lives of “ordinary” people like Maria Sirena and her fellow guests of the Casa – hardworking folks, often poor, who have struggled all their lives – showing how they survive and what they have had to do to live. It is through this personal focus and the stories the women tell, rather than any detailed historical focus, that three-quarters of a century of Cuban revolutionary history emerges for the reader. We learn, for example, that Maria Sirena was born aboard a ship in 1881, when her parents were sailing back to Cuba from Boston, after meeting with the exiled leaders of Cuba’s revolutionary movement, and that she and her family were involved in the revolution that became the Spanish-American War. The novel develops in kaleidoscopic fashion, with small colorful episodes and stories from various time periods appearing seemingly at random, mixing with other episodes and events from other periods to broaden the reader’s understanding of the characters and their lives.
Maria Sirena has had much experience as a story-teller, having been for many years a lectora, a reader hired by a cigar factory to read stories to the workers so that they will not become bored as they make cigars. As she tells stories, she reveals far more about her own life and its traumas than she has ever told anyone else. We also learn more about Agustin, Maria Sirena’s father, and his imprisonment during the revolutionary period in the late nineteenth century; about her mother Lulu’s involvement with Antonio Maceo and famed poet Jose Marti, heroes of the first Cuban revolution; and eventually, still more about Maria Sirena herself - her loves, her life, and her difficult decisions.
In this novel filled with exciting and multilayered action, Acevedo ultimately reconstructs the country’s atmosphere from the 1880s to 1963. Her sensitivity to the personal nature of each story as it is revealed by someone who has lived and felt and suffered, and her appreciation of the grandeur of life – on the monumental scale which individuals so seldom appreciate – make this novel unusual and very special. The chronology of the personal stories, regardless of the actual time period in which they occurred, keeps the narrative tension high, and the interest in the characters at their peak. One cannot help wondering how these same women fared in the years following the takeover by Fidel Castro.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Interesting History, but Lacks Something
By bonnie_blu
I was not very informed on the various revolutions that occurred in Cuba in the 19th and 20th centuries. The story this book tells revealed a history that was unknown to me, and made me want to know more. As for the tale itself, it is serviceable enough, but there is something missing, the lack of which flattens the emotional depths that the story should have reached. The events that affect the characters felt superficial and shallow, and did not elicit the emotional response they should have. I'm not sure why this is so, but it seriously detracted from he story.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Cuban Fascination
By Kindle Customer
The Distant Marvels is a wonderful and timely novel. With Cuba so much in the news I was eager to read this book . Acevedo weaves a marvelous tale of Cuban culture and history spanning the revolution that freed Cuba from Spanish rule. The story is told over several days by an elderly women to female friends; all having been evacuated to an old mansion during a hurricane. It is so well written that you will read it quickly and wish it had not ended. I not only enjoyed this read, I learned a great deal about Cuba. I recommend highly.
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