Rachel Kushner: Telex from Cuba, Vintage / Penguin Random House, 978099586999, GBP 8, 99

Rachel Kushner: Telex from Cuba, Vintage / Penguin Random House, 978099586999, GBP 8, 99

A writer who manages to be nominated for the National Book award for first (Telex to Cuba) and second novel (The Flamethrowers), has to be exceptional – no other author has achieved this before. 
My interest in Cuban history stirred me towards “Telex from Cuba” which starts in 1952 with a multilayer of characters and events portraying the last years of US “ownership” of Cuba and Castro’s revolution.  My unintentional but timely choice of reading was spot on, as the US just opened up their first embassy in Cuba since Castro’s revolution  while I was reading this novel.

Rachel Kushner’s language is superb, lush and meticulous in its description of events, characters, nature and politics of Cuba in the Fifties, up to the final days of American “ruler ship”.  "Telex to Cuba" is made up of several colorful characters who tell their story, such as KC, a young boy, whose father is the director of the United Fruit Company or Unifrutico, virtually owning the island.  The American companies had Cuban politicians in their back pocket and dictated who became part of their privileged lifestyle. Unifrutico also controlled the price of food Haitian and Cuban laborers had to pay in the company stores as there was nowhere else to go to buy food turning them virtually into US slaves.   Everly Lederer , a young girl who loves anything Cuban and particularly Willy their Haitian gardener, keenly observes the decadent life style of her parents which is paid for by the back breaking work of  sugar cane cutters.  Del Sites, KC’s brother has run off to join  Castro's rebels in the mountains, a fact which is hidden as long as possible from the expat community.  Rachel K, cabaret dancer in Havana’s Cabaret Tokio and mistress of the current president Batista and also of the former president, persues her own interests and is deeply entangled with a French agitator called Maziere who sells his knowledge and skills to anyone who will pay for it. This colorful cast of characters kept me in thrall throughout reading.  It is a perfect literary summer read, I virtually felt myself part of this vibrant time in modern Cuban history, could literally feel the tropical temperatures and the boredom of the American wives in their alcoholic stupor flowing through the pages. I look forward to reading Kusher's other novel, "The Flamethrowers"