The Aguero Sisters - Tapa blanda

"Excerpts from reviews of Cristina Garcia's "The Aguero Sisters "An extraordinary new novel does justice to the Cuba of history as well as the Cuba of imagination....Garcia has crafted a beautifully rounded work of art, as warm and wry and sensuous as the island she so clearly loves." --"Time "In 1992, Cristina Garcia's "Dreaming in Cuban announced the presence of a new star in the American literary firmament.... Garcia's remarkable second novel, "The Aguero Sisters, is even better, a deeper, more profound plunge into the mysteries of loyalty, love and identity (national, familial and otherwise)....Cristina Garcia again proves herself a gifted chronicler of exile's promise and peril." --"Newsday "Five years after her debut, the former journalist has made good on her early promise with a superb second novel, "The Aguero Sisters....With sensual prose and a plot that captures the angst of the Cuban diaspora...Garcia seductively draws us in and refuses to let go." --"Newsweek "The conventions of magic realism can either amplify the story and give it resonance or fragment the narrative, draining it of clarity. Garcia's beautifully written second novel...seems to embody both extremes....Her prose is lush and rhythmic, so that the novel has an almost feverish air." --"Booklist "A bold and very richly detailed portrait...Fluid, graceful, and extremely rewarding: a work of high seriousness and rich detail." --"Kirkus Reviews "Cristina Garcia neatly sidesteps the curse of the much-feted first novel...with the assured "The Aguero Sisters, a vibrant tale of a repressed Manhattan cosmeticssaleswomen and her sexy, Havana-based sister that blends family, culture, and Garcia's shapely prose into a rich, velvety world one is loath to leave." --"Elle "This is no paint-by-numbers allegory. Garcia's characters are three-dimensional and her novel is filled with rich and compelling detail." --"San Francisco Chronicle "From the Trade Paperback edition.

This is the story of two sisters haunted by the deaths of their parents and separated by the Cuban revolution. Constancia Aguero lives in Miami with her husband. Her sister Reina has remained in Cuba, but after a freak accident she decides to travel to Miami to find her sister. Dovetailed with the story of the two sisters is that of their parents - a story haunted by a single event; in 1948, naturalists Ignacio and Blanca Aguero explored the Zapata Swamp on horseback, on a bird collecting trip. Ignacio, aiming at the hummingbird hovering near the nape of his wife neck, shoots her and she is killed at once and he `carries his wife seventeen miles to the nearest village and began to tell his lies'. It is the daughter's unravelling of these lies, together with the story of Ignacio and Blanca's courtship that haunts this powerful and atmospheric novel. Told against a political backdrop of revolution and change, The Aguero Sisters is an engaging story of love, loyalty and deception - but also asks painful questions about homeland, allegiance, desire, identity and memory.