City on Fire (2015) By Garth Risk Hallberg

At a mammoth 903 pages, City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg provides ample proof there really are only six degrees of separation.  By the novel’s end, we’ve met everyone in New York, or at least their stand-in, and have had to draw a genealogy-like chart to connect them.  It’s a suspense filled book, with a convoluted plot (my only criticism).  But, let me emphasize, it is a phenomenal read.

How does one begin to summarize this book without providing a spoiler?  Not an easy task.

It’s set mostly in Manhattan and the Bronx, with chapters in Brooklyn Heights, Staten Island, and for suburban angst, trips to Long Island.  The time frame is 1977, the bicentennial is over, disco is reigning, punk is rebelling, and the plague has not yet arrived.  It is the time period immortalized by images of subway graffiti.  Oh, and the finale happens during a city-wide electricity blackout.

In reality, the main character is New York.  The supporting cast includes many people, and it would be difficult to single out just one, they all play significant roles.  In no particular order:

• William – the gay son of the Hamilton-Sweeney bluebloods.
• Regan – William’s sister
• Charlie – the epitome of suburban wannabee part of the action.
• Sam(antha) – the epitome of suburban girl who is part of the action.
• Keith – who is married to Regan, and having an affair with Sam
• Mercer – William’s boyfriend
• Amory – a.k.a. Demon Brother, William & Regan’s step-Uncle.
• Richard – a reporter
• Dr. Zig – a radio shock jock
• Larry – a NYC police detective
• Sewer Girl, Sol, DT, Jenny and many more … and Ex Post-Facto, the punk rock group that connects the dots.

I will often “dog-ear” pages when I read a book, and did so twice with City on Fire because of short quotes that so perfectly capture a larger topic.

The first was to mark a passage from a chapter about the riots that occur during the blackout, Mercer gets attacked when he tries to prevent a school from being ransacked.  He gets rescued by a drag queen named Venus de Nylon.  “I had no idea you had it in you,” says Mercer to his rescuer.  Venus’ response:  “No one ever does, Mercer, until they get pushed too far” – a clear flashback to the start of the modern day gay rights movement a few blocks away (New York, 1969) when drag queens led the counter-charge during a police raid on the Stonewall Inn.

It was like a waiting room where they kept not calling your name.

My other “dog ear” is from a flash forward.  It alludes to one of the gay characters who later contracted AIDS, as he is being treated with early, less effective drug regimens: “They put him on drugs, things went up and down, but he lived.  He lived.  It was like a waiting room where they kept not calling your name.”  An entire genre of books has been written on this subject.  Hallberg got it in one sentence.

Recommendation:  I loved the book, convoluted plot or not.  Do I recommend it?  Hard to say, you may have to make that call yourself.  There is a lot of "airing of dirty laundry" in this book, particularly on the 70's rampant sex and drug culture, but I cannot say there are any inaccuracies. What I can say is there is a lot in this book that many will not want to read, and others will deny.

Dreaming in Cuban (1992) By Christina Garcia

I suspect we are witnessing the end of a genre.  In 1959 a revolution led by Fidel Castro succeeded in toppling Cuban President Batista, a puppet of the United States, resulting in a shutdown of relations between the two countries -- one authoritarian dictatorship replaced by another.  In 2015, the “normalization” process, brokered by Pope Francis, began, its future is still largely uncertain. 

Between those two dates are 56 years of intense, controversial, fiercely debated, history and culture; tinged with enough conspiracy theories to keep Hollywood and the National Inquirer in script for decades.  This background includes the Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis, the (John) Kennedy assassination, the Peruvian Embassy & Operation Peter Pan, the Mariel Boat Flotilla, the Tropicana and the “Mob,” the Buena Vista Social Club, and the Malecon, … not a complete list.  And, let’s not forget that decidedly Cuban-American cultural icon from my childhood, Ricky Ricardo.

Much has been written about these 56 years, both fiction and non-fiction, including a fun little book I read earlier this week called Dreaming in Cuban, by Christina Garcia.  Her book is almost unique in the “Cuban Revolution” genre because it let its characters make the value judgements, not the author, and the characters have different takes on their shared history.  It’s also interesting because in this decidedly “macho” culture, its main characters are entirely female.

The copy I read has a library stamp in it from the International School in Panama, which is probably an interesting story in its own right.

 

The characters span a multi-generation family who are divided politically.  The matriarch is Celia, a devoted follower of El Lider (Fidel Castro).  She provides much of the history of the rich-poor divisions in the country that allowed the revolution to happen in the first place.  She has two daughters and a son: Felicia, is a practitioner of native religion and ends up being institutionalized for mental health reasons – Celia raises Felicia’s son (who plays only a minor role in the book, until the very end); Lourdes, marries a wealthy man, they lose everything in the revolution, fleeing to the U.S. and eventually settling in Brooklyn (her father will eventually join them); and Javier, who is raised in Cuba and joins the Communist Party, eventually taking a teaching position in Prague – when his wife leaves him, he returns to Cuba to drink himself into oblivion.

Playing an outsize role in the book is Lourdes’ daughter Pilar, raised in the U.S., she is a fan of Lou Reed and all things punk – the contrast between her political indifference, and her mother’s vehement anti-Castro tirades are the core of the book. 

Recommendation: Because of its many dream sequences, the book is confusing at times, but it is also an interesting read.