Cristina Garcia, Dreaming in Cuba

Cristina Garcia, Dreaming in Cuban.
New York: Ballentine Books, 1993. 246 pps. trade paperback.

Dreaming in Cuban is a novel written in the lyrical style. Husband surprised me
by picking this book up at a sale and further astonished me when he read through
it and liked it. "You like Spanish lyricism," I taunted him over his morning coffee.
Intrigued by the idea that husband was reading such a novel, I read it also. Last
night.

Dreaming in Cuban introduces us to several branches of one family scattered
in several places. The grandmother, a strong atheistic woman named Celia,
remains in Cuba but has preternatural conversations with a granddaughter
named Pilar nightly. Pilar lives in Brooklyn with her mother Lourdes (who is
one of Celia's daughters) and her father Rufino. Lourdes runs a bakery and gets
fat on the pastries.

Lourdes' younger sister lives in Havana and her baby brother lives overseas in
Czechoslovakia. There are also relatives in Florida that send Pilar back to Brooklyn
when she runs away in an effort to get back to Cuba. Pilar is the most intriguing
woman-child in the novel. She is artsy but not insane. She is there when her
grandfather is sent to Brooklyn for cancer treatments. (He dies). She is the
catalyst for a trip to Cuba with Lourdes in time to witness Celia's passing on.

The thing is, both Lourdes and the middle sister Felicia go insane. Felicia is
intoxicated with the (Cuban) revolution. Lourdes (who is as anti-Castro as
Felicia is pro) has an unhappy marriage to a cheating husband. Yet Cuba
still calls to Lourdes. She reminisces about birds she had over there in an
aviary once in times past.

But the glory days never quite return. And the old haw about never being
able to return home again holds true.

The language in Dreaming in Cuban is rich as befitting the genre. The
novel is sentimental, perhaps syrupy. I found myself liking Celia and
Pilar the best out of all of the characters in the story. The forays into
Santeria were also of interest to me since there are some who practice
here in my hometown.

Cautiously recommended, for those who are devoted to the lyrical
genre.

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Jeffery Deaver, The Broken Window

Jeffery Deaver, The Broken Window: A Lincoln Rhyme Novel.
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008.
Hardcover, 418 pps.

The first Lincoln Rhyme novel I read by Jeffery Deaver was
The Bone Collector. For the uninitiated, Lincoln Rhyme
was a detective until an accident rendered him a quad. He
now has a high tech life in his townhouse, an attractive
girlfriend by the name of Amelia Sachs, an assistant Thom,
and a bunch of N.Y.P.D. colleagues who depend upon him.
Amelia walks the grid of crime scenes and Lincoln processes
the information into leads and suspects. The Bone Collector
has also been made into a movie with the attractive Amelia
Sachs played by Angelina Jolie.

The Broken Window has at its' heart several identified and
convicted innocents and one estranged Rhyme cousin who is on
his way to a similar fate. UNSUB522 is cunning. He has inside
connections to a data mining company. The data mining company
holds a half-dozen suspects and an aura of evil. One of the detectives,
a young man with a traumatic brain injury, has a run-in with one
of the suspects who mocks him for not knowing what Excel (trademark,
no copyright infringement intended) is. With a great deal of compassion,
Lincoln Rhymes tells the detective not to bother learning stuff that isn't
useful for him.

Jeffery Deaver comes through with shining colors on this novel. For
those who enjoy mysteries, highly recommended.

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My Sister's Keeper, the movie

Recently some women friends and I opted for a night out. After dinner at the King's Buffet, we adjourned to a local cinema to feast on "My Sister's Keeper." Here I must confess that I have not read the book and probably won't.

I was pleasantly surprised to see Cameron Diaz in a starring role as the evil, controlling mother. I am a great fan of hers ever since "Something About Mary." She played the role with excellence. I found myself hating Mrs. Fitzgerald during the show for what she was putting her younger daughter through medically.

Younger daughter Anna (Abigail Breslin) was very convincing. I felt her pain as she talked about being "spare parts" for her older sister Kate (Sofia Vassilieva) who was then terminally ill with leukemia. She was gutsy in court and I applauded her triumphs.

Older sister Kate was also very convincing. I was glad to see that sex happened during the movie. Very often professionals and others forget that we folks with disabilities, illnesses, and conditions often still like sex and want it, just like anybody else. Her death was moving and she got to say all the things she had to say via a scrapbook collection she shared with her witch of a mother.

The movie opened with a horrific nosebleed. The seriousness of Kate's condition was immediately established. The hospital scenes were poignant, the court scene was dramatic, the sex scene was fun. Dad (Jason Patric) who was usually cowed by Mom showed character growth when he defied her in order to fulfill Kate's last wish for a day at the beach. Unfortunately, the ending paled. It resembled "On Golden Pond" and I would have liked to have seen something stronger done.

"My Sister's Keeper" is a pure chick flick and one I recommend as such. Ladies and those men with especially sensitive souls, bring your crying towels. You will need them for this tearjerker.

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Poetry Jamming at Barnes and Noble

Last night (which was Wednesday) I went to the open mic at the Barnes & Noble in Niskayuna. The open mic was held in the lounge area rather than the coffee shop. There were rappers there-- including the famous M.C. Graffiti-- and singers and poets and one really old guy with an easel making art.

The guys there were bee-bopping away, the singers sang, the poets jammed, the rappers rapped. I got up and told part of my journey. I talked about my car accident and the traumatic brain injury, about Nick from the bait shop who went down to the police station and started screaming at the desk sargeant that I needed help too (the man who was high had proceeded downstreet causing a second accident), about the hospital taking x-rays of everything but my head. Unbeknownst to me, Nick's granddaughter was in the audience. Nick has been dead now a couple of years (that I knew) and a grandson had recently reopened the bait shop (that I also knew). We talked later, a difficult meeting for her to be sure as she was not expecting to hear a stranger talk glowingly about her dead grandfather last night.

There were truly some beautiful talented young people there last night. I plan to go more often as the jam is held the third Wednesday of each month at 7:15 p.m.

five stars
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Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay

Jeff Lindsay, Darkly Dreaming Dexter. New York: Vintage Crime Books, 2004. paperback, 288 pps.

I am a big fan of The Sopranos, a Home Box Office Series that ran for six seasons. Very recently, I've been treated to Nurse Jackie on Showtime, another series staring Edie Falco (Carmella Soprano). Showtime is now releasing yet another series called Dexter. The other day, I found the books that the character Dexter is based on.

Like The Sopranos there is killing in Dexter. Like Nurse Jackie, there is a cut off ear. Where The Sopranos tells a somewhat fictionalized account of a New Jersey crime family, Dexter tells the fictional story of a serial killer who works alone. Nurse Jackie is pithy and self-confident. Dexter is socially clumsy but hides it.

Dexter is serial killing with a twist. He operates out of Miami, Florida. He has a day job where he is quiet and unassuming, attempting to blend in with the scenery. Dexter Morgan is a blood splatter analysis by day and his foster sister Deborah Morgan is a cop. Deborah is a frustrated cop stuck in the clothing of a prostitute busting johns in a seedy motel with a real bitch arch-rival. Dexter has an arch-rival too (besides himself) in the form of a cop named Doantes who hates him for a reason he cannot quite finger.

Dexter's late great foster dad Harry Morgan was also a cop. Harry realized that Dexter had the makings of a serial killer when Dexter was young. We are told that Harry taught Dexter to only kill people who deserve killing. Throughout the book, Dexter endeavors to live up to The Code of Harry. The first principle is not to get emotionally involved. Dexter comes close to violating that essential rule in the book but does not cross the line.

This book has all the elements of a thriller, complete with one high-speed chase. Jeff Linday the author has also managed a fair amount of forensic psychology in it, especially in portrayal of a sociopath as one without feelings. The one and only weakness I can point to is the repeating of a phrase several times by Dexter the narrator whenever he chooses not to answer a question that might give him away.

I genuinely like this book, read it in one sitting. I like this book so much that when done with it, I was ready to go out to the bookstore to get the other three. No doubt the other three books will make their way into the home library. Not since Jeffrey Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme mysteries was I so captivated by a crime fiction book.

Highly recommended for readers who watch C.S.I. and who are fascinated by serial killers.

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