the fallen (carlos manuel álvarez)

 The realities of Cuba, as this blog has noted before, are difficult to decipher. Manuel’s elegant novella tells the story of a family coping with the harsh end of the revolution. Armando, the father, is an honourable son of the revolution who runs a hotel and tries to do so without being corrupt. It doesn’t help that his daughter, Maria, who also works in the hotel, has a small smuggling gig going on. Or that his wife, Mariana, is suffering from epilepsy brought on in the wake of her cancer treatment. Meanwhile, their son is in the barracks, doing his national service. The novel is constructed from five chapters within which each family member has their own section. Assembling the narrative in this mosaic style, Manuel puts together a desperate portrait of a revolution which is eating itself. Out on the edges, events have taken a decidedly Soviet turn, society controlled by petty corruption and secret police. The idealism has long gone, and in its place is a claustrophobic struggle to make ends meet and stay onside. The Fallen makes an effective companion piece to the Havana based Miguel Rey’s Habitat. Dreams of the the twentieth century foundering on the rocks of the twenty first.