The Strange Case of Rachel K

I decided to try this after an interesting review on NPR and enjoyed the book. This is three short stories with the first and the third having an obvious connection. It is set in Cuba between the Spanish-American War and the overthrow of the Batista regime, the third story ending soon after Batista takes power--Batista and his predecessor both appear as characters. The comparison between Havana occupied by American money and Paris occupied by the Nazis and other analogies were the highlights for me.

Not that interesting

— Also, in this in-between era, after the Spanish, who cooked their parrots so slowly they remained alive as they were removed from the oven, and before the Russians, who took the scrubbers off the chimneys and let the red dust rain down: a dictator's estate, with artificial waterfall and presidential barbershop, a divorcée's mausoleum, with amber Lalique windows, and the addition of cheval-de-frise on the low walls of Spanish colonial buildings, to prevent vagrants from sitting.With writing like this, how could I not be thrilled? Rachel Kushner's three little vignettes of Cuba in the decadent years just before the revolution are utterly superb. This is my first experience of the author, but it makes me eager to read her novels, TELEX FROM CUBA (2008) or THE FLAME THROWERS (2013), which I actually own. This is five-star writing if I ever saw it. Kushner has been compared to Roberto Bolaño, which I certainly see in the title story here—a reworking of a Cuban noir movie which happens to have the same name as the author's own. Her technique of approaching her subject with abrupt dashes from every possible direction, like a terrier barking in brilliant prose, reminds me also of my favorite book about Cuba in this period, ADIOS, HAPPY HOMELAND, by Ana Menendez.But what is it about marketing? To sell three short stories, totalling 60 small pages, for just under $20? That is 33 cents per page! And then, having printed them in a really rather beautiful volume that nestles in the hand, to cover the whole thing in a simply hideous jumble of a cover with virtually illegible lettering—do they have a suicide wish? Reading Kushner's brief introduction to the stories (as brilliant as any of the writing in the stories themselves), it is clear that these pieces are a decade old, dug out from a drawer. I happened to find out that the leading male character in the title story, a real French former Nazi called Christian de la Mazière, also appears in TELEX FROM CUBA. So if the title story, which is longer than the other two put together, should turn out to be merely a study for the novel, readers of that book will find almost nothing here that is new.My advice (which Amazon won't like): get this from your library and read it overnight as I did; the writing is simply superb. But buyer beware, be very much aware!

This will take you to Telex From Cuba, which is probably the publisher's intention. Not too much question that RK is the real deal, even if this one reads like an appetizer for the uninitiated, or an invitation to stay tuned.

Don’t bother with this, it’s all in the terrific Telex From Cuba.