The Tower of the Antilles

The stories in this new collection from prolific Cuban American author and translator Obejas read more like records or testimonies than traditional narratives, and they're tied together by the ennui and hopelessness of the characters, with the author offering no conclusions. For narrator Dulce, "The Sound Catalog" is a list of sounds and the memories they invoke of Cuba and her ex-lovers. In "The Maldives," a Cuban woman gets an American visa from her estranged father only to find out she has a brain tumor. She plans, very matter-of-factly, a final solo trip to the Maldives. "Cola of Oblivion" also shows off Obejas's wit and sense of tragic irony, as a woman referred to as only "the visitor" eats dinner with her mother's cousin, who simultaneously berates the mother for leaving Cuba without sending gifts back and pleads with the visitor to help them get to America. "Waters" describes a trip home by an expat author, who is asked accusingly whether she dreams in Spanish or English.