Booklist

Ruins.

Obejas, Achy (Author)

Mar 2009. 300 p. Akashic, paperback,20$15.95.

A fatherless child named in honor of the big U.S. Navy ships in Guantánamo Bay, Usnavy, weary and

destitute at 54 in 1994, still believes fervently in Cuba s Communist mission even though his neighbors are

fleeing to the U.S. under the cover of darkness on any thing that will float. Usnavy works, navigates state

bureaucracy, plays dominos in the square with his ribald buddies, and basks in the radiance of his only

treasure, an opulent, Tiffany-like stained-glass lamp. A rare object of beauty, an embodiment of light and

transcendence, it links humble and honest Usnavy to a hidden facet of Cuban history, and to the freer world of creativity and its shadow side of greed and desperation, deception and secret justice. Following the substantial Days of Awe (2001), prizewinning, ever-innovative Cuban American writer Obejas evinces a new, focused lyricism as she penetrates to the very heart of the Cuban paradox in a story as pared down and intense as its narrator's life . Inlaid with images of transformation, this Havana story in the Hemingway mode illuminates the tragedies and resiliency of a twilight land caught in the spell of a failed dream and portrays with exquisite sensitivity a man reaching toward the light.
-Donna Seaman