1 00:00:01,334 --> 00:00:10,501 ♪♪ 2 00:00:10,501 --> 00:00:19,667 ♪♪ 3 00:00:19,667 --> 00:00:22,601 -Hello and welcome back to Book Lust. 4 00:00:22,601 --> 00:00:24,667 I'm your host, Nancy Pearl. 5 00:00:24,667 --> 00:00:29,667 My guest today via Zoom at the Folio Library in downtown 6 00:00:29,667 --> 00:00:34,968 Seattle is author and playwright, Cristina Garcia. 7 00:00:34,968 --> 00:00:39,601 Cristina, thank you so much for joining us today on Book 8 00:00:39,601 --> 00:00:43,767 Lust. It's just such a pleasure 9 00:00:43,767 --> 00:00:46,868 to get to talk to you about your writing 10 00:00:46,868 --> 00:00:48,868 and especially your new book. 11 00:00:48,868 --> 00:00:53,000 -Oh, thank you so much. It's great to be back. 12 00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:58,234 -Did -- so, let's start back in 90s, 13 00:00:58,234 --> 00:01:01,133 you wrote a book called 14 00:01:01,133 --> 00:01:04,901 Dreaming in Cuban, right? Exactly! 15 00:01:04,901 --> 00:01:07,868 -That was many years ago, right. 16 00:01:07,868 --> 00:01:09,968 -And so, you wrote a novel called 17 00:01:09,968 --> 00:01:17,334 Dreaming in Cuban and it was about the Cuban revolution, 18 00:01:17,334 --> 00:01:24,801 the immigrant experience, the world that was at that time. 19 00:01:24,801 --> 00:01:27,801 And then many years later, 20 00:01:27,801 --> 00:01:30,000 but I know they went by very quickly 21 00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:34,767 because that's what time does, you wrote a sequel to Dreaming 22 00:01:34,767 --> 00:01:38,067 in Cuban called Vanishing Maps. 23 00:01:38,067 --> 00:01:42,634 So, can we go back and start with the impetus 24 00:01:42,634 --> 00:01:45,100 for Dreaming in Cuban 25 00:01:45,100 --> 00:01:48,367 and introduce some of the characters 26 00:01:48,367 --> 00:01:52,434 who are going to reappear in one form or another 27 00:01:52,434 --> 00:01:54,901 in Vanishing Maps? 28 00:01:54,901 --> 00:01:58,334 -Right. Sure, of course. Thank you. 29 00:01:58,334 --> 00:02:01,901 Well, Dreaming in Cuban was my very first novel, 30 00:02:01,901 --> 00:02:03,934 it came out in 1992 31 00:02:03,934 --> 00:02:08,534 and I would say it's the most biographical of anything -- 32 00:02:08,534 --> 00:02:10,000 -Yeah. 33 00:02:10,000 --> 00:02:11,601 -Written, not surprisingly, since it was the first novel. 34 00:02:11,601 --> 00:02:16,367 And it chronicles the lives of a family 35 00:02:16,367 --> 00:02:18,968 bitterly divided over the Cuban revolution. 36 00:02:18,968 --> 00:02:20,934 Half of them stay in Cuba, 37 00:02:20,934 --> 00:02:25,000 the other half emigrate to the US. 38 00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:30,033 And there's a -- and what ensues is this shouting match 39 00:02:30,033 --> 00:02:32,300 for decades thereafter 40 00:02:32,300 --> 00:02:35,534 and it focuses on the women of this family. 41 00:02:35,534 --> 00:02:40,100 The matriarch, Celia del Pino, who's a devotee, 42 00:02:40,100 --> 00:02:42,067 staunch supporter of the revolution. 43 00:02:42,067 --> 00:02:46,701 Her daughter, Felicia, who is a kind of deranged hairdresser. 44 00:02:46,701 --> 00:02:49,968 And then the other daughter, Celia's other daughter, 45 00:02:49,968 --> 00:02:53,567 who leaves, ends up in the New York, 46 00:02:53,567 --> 00:02:55,067 opening a bakery, 47 00:02:55,067 --> 00:02:59,834 and vowing to fight communism from behind her counter 48 00:02:59,834 --> 00:03:03,234 with her crullers and sticky buns. 49 00:03:03,234 --> 00:03:04,501 She has a daughter, Pilar, 50 00:03:04,501 --> 00:03:09,834 who is the opposite of her mother, as often happens. 51 00:03:09,834 --> 00:03:12,968 And there is a reunion involved where the mother, 52 00:03:12,968 --> 00:03:14,734 daughter go back to Cuba 53 00:03:14,734 --> 00:03:18,934 and all kinds of mischief and mayhem ensue. 54 00:03:18,934 --> 00:03:21,534 So, I think that's a kind of overview. 55 00:03:21,534 --> 00:03:25,334 -Yeah. What I thought -- 56 00:03:25,334 --> 00:03:27,934 I mean these lovely touches that you had in 57 00:03:27,934 --> 00:03:30,400 Dreaming in Cuban. 58 00:03:30,400 --> 00:03:34,667 So, the name of the bakery that Pilar's mother starts, 59 00:03:34,667 --> 00:03:36,400 which begins -- 60 00:03:36,400 --> 00:03:39,968 which is a series of bakeries in New York, 61 00:03:39,968 --> 00:03:44,767 they're called Yankee Doodle. I mean she's fighting communism 62 00:03:44,767 --> 00:03:48,200 in every possible way that she can. 63 00:03:48,200 --> 00:03:55,033 There was, you know, as in many Latin American novels, 64 00:03:55,033 --> 00:03:59,267 there was what we call magic realism, 65 00:03:59,267 --> 00:04:02,767 but what I always prefer to think of it 66 00:04:02,767 --> 00:04:07,033 as elastic realism that it, you know, 67 00:04:07,033 --> 00:04:11,200 to say it's magic realism in a way narrows it 68 00:04:11,200 --> 00:04:14,133 but elastic realism you sort of think of a rubber band 69 00:04:14,133 --> 00:04:16,334 and how it's including, you know -- 70 00:04:16,334 --> 00:04:20,000 can encompass all these different things. 71 00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:24,968 Was that part of your using magic realism 72 00:04:24,968 --> 00:04:28,834 and elastic realism, was that part of your -- 73 00:04:28,834 --> 00:04:33,367 did you always know that that would be part of the novels? 74 00:04:33,367 --> 00:04:35,734 -First of all, I love that phrase, elastic realism. 75 00:04:35,734 --> 00:04:36,801 -Oh, good. 76 00:04:36,801 --> 00:04:38,033 -I'm going to adopt it and credit 77 00:04:38,033 --> 00:04:39,834 it to you Nancy because -- -Oh, please do it. 78 00:04:39,834 --> 00:04:44,167 -It's perfect and concisely describes what I try and do, 79 00:04:44,167 --> 00:04:49,300 which is not search for magical opportunities necessarily 80 00:04:49,300 --> 00:04:52,334 unless, you know, of course they present themselves. 81 00:04:52,334 --> 00:04:56,501 But to consider these realities as extensions of characters 82 00:04:56,501 --> 00:04:59,367 and extensions of their subjectivity 83 00:04:59,367 --> 00:05:02,467 and their preoccupations, both personal and political. 84 00:05:02,467 --> 00:05:08,567 So, for me, that can mean seeing ghosts, you know, 85 00:05:08,567 --> 00:05:11,501 and talking to the dead. It could mean apparitions. 86 00:05:11,501 --> 00:05:15,601 It could mean being consumed by scene, 87 00:05:15,601 --> 00:05:17,467 a distorted scene from the past 88 00:05:17,467 --> 00:05:20,434 or imagining talking to a comandante, 89 00:05:20,434 --> 00:05:22,701 for example, which Celia does. 90 00:05:22,701 --> 00:05:26,133 He always imagines him kind of looking over her shoulder 91 00:05:26,133 --> 00:05:27,534 and into her life. -Right. 92 00:05:27,534 --> 00:05:31,434 -So, all of these for me are forms of elastic realism. 93 00:05:31,434 --> 00:05:32,868 Right, it rolls off the tongue. 94 00:05:32,868 --> 00:05:34,701 -Yeah, it does. It's great. 95 00:05:34,701 --> 00:05:39,501 I must have read it somewhere years ago, but I've always -- 96 00:05:39,501 --> 00:05:41,267 -So, I didn't set out to do that, 97 00:05:41,267 --> 00:05:44,734 although I'm a big fan of elastic realisms 98 00:05:44,734 --> 00:05:46,434 from many different cultures. 99 00:05:46,434 --> 00:05:49,534 Probably the first I came across most dramatically 100 00:05:49,534 --> 00:05:51,634 was Kafka's Metamorphosis -- -Right. 101 00:05:51,634 --> 00:05:54,133 -When I was a teenager and I'm like you can do this? 102 00:05:54,133 --> 00:05:55,701 This is... 103 00:05:55,701 --> 00:06:00,501 And then the same for reading a lot of the Russian masters. 104 00:06:00,501 --> 00:06:03,033 The things that happened in Gogol 105 00:06:03,033 --> 00:06:08,534 or even American literature and Toni Morrison's work 106 00:06:08,534 --> 00:06:12,000 and Louise Erdrich's work in poetry of all sorts. 107 00:06:12,000 --> 00:06:15,133 So, it's not exclusive to the Latin American -- 108 00:06:15,133 --> 00:06:16,300 -Right. -Tonation. 109 00:06:16,300 --> 00:06:17,601 -Right. 110 00:06:17,601 --> 00:06:20,834 And I think by thinking of it as elastic realism 111 00:06:20,834 --> 00:06:23,901 rather than magic -- I mean to say magical realism 112 00:06:23,901 --> 00:06:27,801 is to sort of place it in the Latin world 113 00:06:27,801 --> 00:06:31,467 because we think of García Márquez and all of that, 114 00:06:31,467 --> 00:06:35,467 but it is as you say everywhere. 115 00:06:35,467 --> 00:06:38,868 It's a choice that the writer makes to look 116 00:06:38,868 --> 00:06:42,567 beyond the world of here and now. 117 00:06:42,567 --> 00:06:45,033 -Yes, sort of to be open to the moment 118 00:06:45,033 --> 00:06:47,601 and the writing of things expanding, 119 00:06:47,601 --> 00:06:50,701 of unspooling in unpredictable ways. 120 00:06:50,701 --> 00:06:56,501 -Right. Yeah. And when you -- at the end -- 121 00:06:56,501 --> 00:07:00,567 Cecilia is one of the great characters 122 00:07:00,567 --> 00:07:04,400 I think in contemporary literature. 123 00:07:04,400 --> 00:07:08,200 I mean she's a remarkable, remarkable woman. 124 00:07:08,200 --> 00:07:12,834 I just -- I was just full of admiration for her 125 00:07:12,834 --> 00:07:15,300 and, you know, her belief in the cause 126 00:07:15,300 --> 00:07:20,267 of the revolution and Castro and all of that. 127 00:07:20,267 --> 00:07:23,934 And you never named Castro, that's so interesting right, 128 00:07:23,934 --> 00:07:26,434 he's never mentioned by name. 129 00:07:26,434 --> 00:07:28,601 -Well, he isn't, he's always a leader 130 00:07:28,601 --> 00:07:31,400 or maybe even a comandante. -Right. 131 00:07:31,400 --> 00:07:35,934 -But I think for me I was playing also along with -- 132 00:07:35,934 --> 00:07:38,234 I mean it's clearly Cuba by all the indications 133 00:07:38,234 --> 00:07:41,033 and details of the story. -Right. 134 00:07:41,033 --> 00:07:45,968 -But I also wanted to tap into this long tradition 135 00:07:45,968 --> 00:07:47,968 of what I call the "caudillo" novels 136 00:07:47,968 --> 00:07:50,801 "Caudillo" is like "strong man" in Spanish. 137 00:07:50,801 --> 00:07:53,133 The caudillo novels of Latin America, 138 00:07:53,133 --> 00:07:56,033 of which there are many, it's a very rich tradition. 139 00:07:56,033 --> 00:08:02,067 And so, I wanted part of the story to reference that, 140 00:08:02,067 --> 00:08:04,467 you know, that strong man, whether it's Cuba 141 00:08:04,467 --> 00:08:07,634 or whether it was in Guatemala with el presidente 142 00:08:07,634 --> 00:08:11,067 or with Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, 143 00:08:11,067 --> 00:08:14,033 the feast of the goat. It is -- 144 00:08:14,033 --> 00:08:19,367 they are a part of all of our lives, inheritances, 145 00:08:19,367 --> 00:08:23,467 political legacies which people are contending with to this day. 146 00:08:23,467 --> 00:08:27,534 -Yeah. So, then -- so at the end of 147 00:08:27,534 --> 00:08:30,701 Dreaming in Cuban, 148 00:08:30,701 --> 00:08:35,434 it's not clear at that time, I think to readers, 149 00:08:35,434 --> 00:08:38,100 today even if somebody reads it for the first time, 150 00:08:38,100 --> 00:08:42,567 it isn't clear that there is going to be a sequel. 151 00:08:42,567 --> 00:08:46,801 You know in some books you know it just ends 152 00:08:46,801 --> 00:08:49,701 and you know there's got to be a sequel. 153 00:08:49,701 --> 00:08:54,567 And by golly, it took you like, you know, 30 years 154 00:08:54,567 --> 00:09:00,200 or so to think of the sequel. What was the impetus for that? 155 00:09:00,200 --> 00:09:03,667 -Well, that's interesting. Just for your readers. 156 00:09:03,667 --> 00:09:06,901 The novel ends with Celia, the matriarch, 157 00:09:06,901 --> 00:09:11,667 who supported the revolution walking kind of heartbroken 158 00:09:11,667 --> 00:09:14,534 and distraught into the sea and presumption 159 00:09:14,534 --> 00:09:17,868 is I think that she is going to drown herself. 160 00:09:17,868 --> 00:09:20,901 -Right. -And I leave it ambiguous. 161 00:09:20,901 --> 00:09:24,901 And so, I was peppered with questions 162 00:09:24,901 --> 00:09:26,501 in the many years since. 163 00:09:26,501 --> 00:09:28,534 What happened to her? Did she really die? 164 00:09:28,534 --> 00:09:31,634 -Right. -Did she kill herself? 165 00:09:31,634 --> 00:09:34,734 Did the coast guard pick her up? What happened? 166 00:09:34,734 --> 00:09:37,334 And honestly I said, I don't know. 167 00:09:37,334 --> 00:09:40,434 I really didn't know. But if someone had pressed me, 168 00:09:40,434 --> 00:09:44,133 I probably would've said yeah, I think she took her own life. 169 00:09:44,133 --> 00:09:49,000 So, imagine my surprise, Celia is alive. 170 00:09:51,067 --> 00:09:57,567 And this only happened because I revisit, you know, for me, 171 00:09:57,567 --> 00:09:59,634 Dreaming in Cuban was a done deal. 172 00:09:59,634 --> 00:10:04,033 It was a discrete novel. I had no plans for a sequel, 173 00:10:04,033 --> 00:10:09,334 but many years later I was asked to adapt the book for theater. 174 00:10:09,334 --> 00:10:13,067 And so, I reread the book several times 175 00:10:13,067 --> 00:10:15,000 to again refamiliarize myself 176 00:10:15,000 --> 00:10:18,367 with everyone and that's when it began, 177 00:10:18,367 --> 00:10:21,534 that's when I started to think well what happened to them? 178 00:10:21,534 --> 00:10:23,234 Did Celia really kill herself? 179 00:10:23,234 --> 00:10:27,767 What happened to Ivanito who was kidnapped by Lourdes, 180 00:10:27,767 --> 00:10:29,400 the bakery owner in Brooklyn, 181 00:10:29,400 --> 00:10:32,734 and hauled over, you know, talk about culture shock, 182 00:10:32,734 --> 00:10:35,734 from outside of Havana to Brooklyn in the 70s, 183 00:10:35,734 --> 00:10:41,801 you know, and everyone else. And it was even made, you know, 184 00:10:41,801 --> 00:10:43,400 I think I had enough distance on it too 185 00:10:43,400 --> 00:10:46,000 because even to adapt it, I had to change a lot of things. 186 00:10:46,000 --> 00:10:48,934 I had to be very flexible about the narrative, 187 00:10:48,934 --> 00:10:51,367 about the characters, about the timeframe. 188 00:10:51,367 --> 00:10:53,601 And then I made the actors, 189 00:10:53,601 --> 00:10:55,701 embodying these characters in ways 190 00:10:55,701 --> 00:10:57,734 that I couldn't have imagined to the extent 191 00:10:57,734 --> 00:10:59,634 that some of them would say, 192 00:10:59,634 --> 00:11:01,901 you know, the character would say that to me 193 00:11:01,901 --> 00:11:04,000 and I was like oh, yes. 194 00:11:04,000 --> 00:11:06,667 And so, then everything seemed possible, 195 00:11:06,667 --> 00:11:09,133 everything was back on the table. 196 00:11:09,133 --> 00:11:11,567 And I had been working on something else at the time 197 00:11:11,567 --> 00:11:13,100 and I remember discussing with my daughter, 198 00:11:13,100 --> 00:11:15,534 also named Pilar, and she said you know mom, 199 00:11:15,534 --> 00:11:18,033 just go with what is interesting you now. 200 00:11:18,033 --> 00:11:21,767 And so, I began Vanishing Maps like that just as an experiment, 201 00:11:21,767 --> 00:11:24,901 just to find out for myself what had happened 202 00:11:24,901 --> 00:11:28,234 and then it juggernauted, if that's a word, 203 00:11:28,234 --> 00:11:31,033 into what became Vanishing Maps. 204 00:11:31,033 --> 00:11:34,701 -What -- how did you choose the title? 205 00:11:34,701 --> 00:11:35,968 -Vanishing Maps? -Yes. 206 00:11:35,968 --> 00:11:41,300 -Yeah. Well, it seemed to me that in, you know, 207 00:11:41,300 --> 00:11:45,100 I set the sequel 20 years after the original, 208 00:11:45,100 --> 00:11:47,234 although I was writing it nearly 30 years 209 00:11:47,234 --> 00:11:48,667 after the original, like for 20 -- 210 00:11:48,667 --> 00:11:51,067 more like 27 years after the original 211 00:11:51,067 --> 00:11:53,300 and it seemed to me that that world 212 00:11:53,300 --> 00:11:57,534 that they were living in when the book ended in 1980 213 00:11:57,534 --> 00:12:00,934 was vastly different than the one they were facing 214 00:12:00,934 --> 00:12:02,567 on the eve of the millennial. 215 00:12:02,567 --> 00:12:03,634 -Right. 216 00:12:03,634 --> 00:12:06,400 -Everything had happened globally. 217 00:12:06,400 --> 00:12:13,367 The fall of the Berlin Wall. The collapse of the Soviet Union 218 00:12:13,367 --> 00:12:15,567 which was absolutely crucial to Cuba -- 219 00:12:15,567 --> 00:12:17,734 revolutionary Cuba's survival. 220 00:12:17,734 --> 00:12:18,901 -Right. 221 00:12:18,901 --> 00:12:21,367 -All these seismic, cataclysmic changes 222 00:12:21,367 --> 00:12:24,601 that it seemed to me would have dispersed this clan 223 00:12:24,601 --> 00:12:26,701 around the globe, which in fact it did. 224 00:12:26,701 --> 00:12:29,400 -Right. -And so, I had to consider 225 00:12:29,400 --> 00:12:33,667 all of that political upheaval in the big sense 226 00:12:33,667 --> 00:12:39,434 with the personal dislocation of all of these characters, 227 00:12:39,434 --> 00:12:42,534 which of course, you know, they ended up around the world, 228 00:12:42,534 --> 00:12:47,467 Moscow and Los Angeles and Berlin and, you know, 229 00:12:47,467 --> 00:12:51,767 and then cordoned them in slowly over the course of the novel 230 00:12:51,767 --> 00:12:55,934 around this one character in Berlin. 231 00:12:55,934 --> 00:13:00,133 -I felt that -- just going back to Dreaming 232 00:13:00,133 --> 00:13:04,701 in Cuban and Celia for a moment, one of the scenes -- 233 00:13:04,701 --> 00:13:09,100 that last scene is when she takes off the earrings 234 00:13:09,100 --> 00:13:17,868 that her lover of four days that she's -- 235 00:13:17,868 --> 00:13:22,234 a Spanish man that she has been corresponding in her mind 236 00:13:22,234 --> 00:13:23,801 with for all these years 237 00:13:23,801 --> 00:13:25,501 and he has given her those earrings 238 00:13:25,501 --> 00:13:30,300 and she takes them off and gives them to the sea 239 00:13:30,300 --> 00:13:35,300 basically was extremely moving. 240 00:13:35,300 --> 00:13:42,067 But what I felt when I was reading Vanishing Maps, 241 00:13:44,133 --> 00:13:49,534 I thought God you must have done so much research 242 00:13:49,534 --> 00:13:51,033 for so much of this book 243 00:13:51,033 --> 00:13:55,501 because it didn't seem possible that you all this knowledge 244 00:13:55,501 --> 00:13:58,667 that you could just draw on out of your mind. 245 00:13:58,667 --> 00:14:01,400 Is that fair to say? Did you do any research? 246 00:14:01,400 --> 00:14:04,367 -Absolutely! A lot of historical research. 247 00:14:04,367 --> 00:14:07,968 Although I have to say that for Celia herself, 248 00:14:07,968 --> 00:14:09,801 I hope I'm not giving away too much to say 249 00:14:09,801 --> 00:14:13,567 that this old lover with whom she was obsessed in fact. 250 00:14:13,567 --> 00:14:16,734 I think Celia would say she had two great loves in her life, 251 00:14:16,734 --> 00:14:20,734 this Spaniard, Gustavo Sierra de Armas 252 00:14:20,734 --> 00:14:23,567 with whom she had a very passionate four day affair, 253 00:14:23,567 --> 00:14:26,434 as you said, in the 1930s, 254 00:14:26,434 --> 00:14:29,200 and then Fidel Castro, a leader himself, 255 00:14:29,200 --> 00:14:33,267 to whom she devoted a good part of her adult life as well. 256 00:14:33,267 --> 00:14:35,634 Not her husband significantly. -Right. 257 00:14:35,634 --> 00:14:37,434 -Among the great loves. 258 00:14:37,434 --> 00:14:40,033 Anyway, so she -- this is another part, 259 00:14:40,033 --> 00:14:42,801 kind of another string of the book 260 00:14:42,801 --> 00:14:44,701 is that Gustavo contacts her. 261 00:14:44,701 --> 00:14:47,367 They're both in their 90s at this point 262 00:14:47,367 --> 00:14:51,767 and he makes an overture to her after his wife dies. 263 00:14:51,767 --> 00:14:52,868 -Yeah. 264 00:14:52,868 --> 00:14:54,133 -And at first she's super irritable 265 00:14:54,133 --> 00:14:55,634 like who does he think he is 266 00:14:55,634 --> 00:14:57,901 and, you know, he thinks... 267 00:14:57,901 --> 00:15:02,300 But she ends up going to Spain for a reunion, 268 00:15:02,300 --> 00:15:04,133 unexpected reunion. 269 00:15:04,133 --> 00:15:06,033 And that part I didn't have to research, 270 00:15:06,033 --> 00:15:08,601 I felt like I knew Celia well enough. 271 00:15:08,601 --> 00:15:11,901 -Yeah, definitely. 272 00:15:11,901 --> 00:15:15,267 -Even well into her, you know, as a nonagenarian. 273 00:15:15,267 --> 00:15:16,467 Maybe I was -- -Right. 274 00:15:16,467 --> 00:15:18,767 -Clearing the path for myself as I'm now... 275 00:15:18,767 --> 00:15:23,400 Hopefully. Hopefully, you know. 276 00:15:23,400 --> 00:15:26,200 -Really. From your lips to God's ears. 277 00:15:26,200 --> 00:15:27,267 -Exactly. -Yeah. 278 00:15:27,267 --> 00:15:29,334 -Exactly. And so, there was that, 279 00:15:29,334 --> 00:15:32,834 so that was very intimate. But other parts of the book, 280 00:15:32,834 --> 00:15:36,734 like understanding the fallout from the Soviet Union. 281 00:15:36,734 --> 00:15:38,067 What happened in Berlin? 282 00:15:38,067 --> 00:15:40,400 What were the -- what was Berlin in the 90s 283 00:15:40,400 --> 00:15:42,000 like when Ivanito -- -Right. 284 00:15:42,000 --> 00:15:45,234 -Landed there, you know, kind of ejected from Moscow 285 00:15:45,234 --> 00:15:47,601 for various reasons? So, yes. 286 00:15:47,601 --> 00:15:51,601 And I, in fact, I did have some research already done 287 00:15:51,601 --> 00:15:53,067 as it were because my pre -- 288 00:15:53,067 --> 00:15:56,167 the book previous to this one is called Here in Berlin 289 00:15:56,167 --> 00:16:00,434 and for that I spent several months in Berlin 290 00:16:00,434 --> 00:16:05,567 walking around, doing research, reading a lot, 291 00:16:05,567 --> 00:16:08,000 haunting cafés and libraries alike. 292 00:16:08,000 --> 00:16:10,467 And so, I was able to draw on some of that, 293 00:16:10,467 --> 00:16:13,567 much of that that wasn't used in that book 294 00:16:13,567 --> 00:16:15,234 as the underpinning for this book, 295 00:16:15,234 --> 00:16:16,534 as the place Berlin, 296 00:16:16,534 --> 00:16:19,534 as the place where everyone ultimately gathers. 297 00:16:19,534 --> 00:16:24,767 And Berlin as a symbol of a place that was leveled, 298 00:16:24,767 --> 00:16:27,734 they called it "jahr null" in German, year zero, 299 00:16:27,734 --> 00:16:31,501 and reinvented itself from the ground up 300 00:16:31,501 --> 00:16:32,868 and which I felt in a way 301 00:16:32,868 --> 00:16:34,968 was what these characters were doing. 302 00:16:34,968 --> 00:16:37,033 In the wake of all this dislocation 303 00:16:37,033 --> 00:16:40,667 they were actually continually reinventing themselves, 304 00:16:40,667 --> 00:16:44,067 figuring out to whom and where they belonged, 305 00:16:44,067 --> 00:16:47,334 what their allegiances were now and how they shifted, 306 00:16:47,334 --> 00:16:50,534 that it was no longer fixed, their identities were fixed 307 00:16:50,534 --> 00:16:53,501 but as malleable as the times that they lived in. 308 00:16:53,501 --> 00:16:55,033 In other words, the maps, 309 00:16:55,033 --> 00:16:57,734 the borders that they grew up with no longer applied. 310 00:16:57,734 --> 00:16:59,434 -Right. And one of the things 311 00:16:59,434 --> 00:17:01,701 that I thought was so interesting 312 00:17:01,701 --> 00:17:03,634 was the way you described 313 00:17:03,634 --> 00:17:09,501 through Celia's experiences in Cuba 314 00:17:09,501 --> 00:17:12,767 what the breakup of the Soviet Union 315 00:17:12,767 --> 00:17:15,634 meant to the people living in Cuba, 316 00:17:15,634 --> 00:17:19,100 which I don't think we often think about, you know. 317 00:17:19,100 --> 00:17:20,334 -Yes. Yes. 318 00:17:20,334 --> 00:17:21,701 -You know and how -- -We don't realize 319 00:17:21,701 --> 00:17:24,300 just how close they were intertwined. 320 00:17:24,300 --> 00:17:25,667 -Yeah. Yeah. 321 00:17:25,667 --> 00:17:28,434 -And just how much Cuba depended on the Soviet Union 322 00:17:28,434 --> 00:17:32,033 for literally daily remittances, it was over -- 323 00:17:32,033 --> 00:17:35,133 easily over a million dollars a day. I think -- 324 00:17:35,133 --> 00:17:37,734 I don't even know what the latest figures on that were. 325 00:17:37,734 --> 00:17:44,767 But yes, what ensued in Cuba was a panic, 326 00:17:44,767 --> 00:17:48,467 you know, like the plug was pulled on their revolution 327 00:17:48,467 --> 00:17:53,367 and suddenly lights, gas, agriculture, 328 00:17:53,367 --> 00:17:55,100 everything was in jeopardy. 329 00:17:55,100 --> 00:17:56,467 -Yeah. 330 00:17:56,467 --> 00:17:59,968 -On average people lost 30 pounds in the first year 331 00:17:59,968 --> 00:18:03,334 of what they called the special period, you know, 332 00:18:03,334 --> 00:18:06,534 and those were very dire times. 333 00:18:06,534 --> 00:18:09,968 And I went to Cuba several times in those years 334 00:18:09,968 --> 00:18:11,067 because I had family there 335 00:18:11,067 --> 00:18:14,834 and they were desperate, you know, so. 336 00:18:14,834 --> 00:18:16,234 -Yeah. 337 00:18:16,234 --> 00:18:19,033 -Yeah and so people don't even realize, you know, 338 00:18:19,033 --> 00:18:21,968 the unintended consequences -- -Right. 339 00:18:21,968 --> 00:18:24,934 -Of political events, of war, things you can't imagine 340 00:18:24,934 --> 00:18:28,267 and how they trickle down -- -Yeah. 341 00:18:28,267 --> 00:18:33,133 And I thought the other headline news 342 00:18:33,133 --> 00:18:36,267 that you bring in to Vanishing Maps 343 00:18:36,267 --> 00:18:41,701 is Elián Gonzalez, his experiences, 344 00:18:41,701 --> 00:18:46,334 and people will remember that he was the little boy who came, 345 00:18:46,334 --> 00:18:50,133 his mother died on the journey over, 346 00:18:50,133 --> 00:18:53,100 the 90 miles between Cuba and the US. 347 00:18:53,100 --> 00:18:56,801 And the big fight over whether he should stay 348 00:18:56,801 --> 00:19:02,334 in the United States with his drunken uncles 349 00:19:02,334 --> 00:19:06,234 whether he should go back to Cuba to live with his father. 350 00:19:06,234 --> 00:19:10,801 And, you know, the anti-Communist feeling 351 00:19:10,801 --> 00:19:16,267 still so prevalent in Miami -- in Florida, but Miami is, 352 00:19:16,267 --> 00:19:21,634 you know, is where it set, you know, is just so -- 353 00:19:21,634 --> 00:19:24,734 it just brought back, it hasn't disappeared, 354 00:19:24,734 --> 00:19:29,734 I mean it's still going on today, you know. 355 00:19:29,734 --> 00:19:32,300 -It is Nancy, astonishingly. 356 00:19:32,300 --> 00:19:34,400 Although, I would say it's most virulent 357 00:19:34,400 --> 00:19:35,767 among the older generations, 358 00:19:35,767 --> 00:19:37,367 say you know my parents' generation, 359 00:19:37,367 --> 00:19:41,567 they're in their late 80s. And although, 360 00:19:41,567 --> 00:19:44,868 if you grew up in Miami as many of my cousins did, 361 00:19:44,868 --> 00:19:48,767 it is a bit -- it is something of a hot -- political hothouse. 362 00:19:48,767 --> 00:19:53,701 So, you grow up in those, you know, 363 00:19:53,701 --> 00:20:00,267 the beliefs of your elders become part of your sensibility 364 00:20:00,267 --> 00:20:01,567 without you even realizing it 365 00:20:01,567 --> 00:20:03,601 because there's nothing to challenge it. 366 00:20:03,601 --> 00:20:04,801 -Right. 367 00:20:04,801 --> 00:20:06,133 -Like when I grew up, I grew up in New York, 368 00:20:06,133 --> 00:20:10,634 so yes at home it was 1950s Cuba but I walked out the door 369 00:20:10,634 --> 00:20:12,200 and I was in Brooklyn and Manhattan 370 00:20:12,200 --> 00:20:15,734 and everything that my ex, you know, all of my experiences 371 00:20:15,734 --> 00:20:18,467 were offering counter narratives to -- 372 00:20:18,467 --> 00:20:20,868 -Right. -To the beliefs at home. 373 00:20:20,868 --> 00:20:25,300 So, but I think that's changing with the younger generations 374 00:20:25,300 --> 00:20:30,834 and also with the subsequent waves of migration from Cuba. 375 00:20:33,801 --> 00:20:39,367 We're talking about a cohort sadly that is dying off now. 376 00:20:39,367 --> 00:20:41,334 What the future will bring overall 377 00:20:41,334 --> 00:20:44,868 to the Cuban American community and its diaspora, 378 00:20:44,868 --> 00:20:47,901 you know, we can only hope to crackle but not predict. 379 00:20:47,901 --> 00:20:55,434 -So, the cousins who all end up in Berlin one way or another, 380 00:20:55,434 --> 00:20:57,467 made their way to Berlin one way or another, 381 00:20:57,467 --> 00:21:02,300 include Ivanito who was the little boy 382 00:21:02,300 --> 00:21:06,834 who was kidnapped really by his aunt out of Cuba 383 00:21:06,834 --> 00:21:12,400 and taken to Brooklyn and he becomes a translator, 384 00:21:12,400 --> 00:21:15,834 a brilliant translator, brilliant at languages, 385 00:21:15,834 --> 00:21:19,167 but what he really loves, 386 00:21:19,167 --> 00:21:22,400 the person who I believe thinks he is, 387 00:21:22,400 --> 00:21:26,467 is a drag queen, Ivanita. 388 00:21:26,467 --> 00:21:34,167 And one of the cousins, Pilar, comes to Berlin with her son 389 00:21:34,167 --> 00:21:39,367 and the relationship between the uncle and Azul -- 390 00:21:39,367 --> 00:21:41,334 am I pronouncing that at least a little bit -- 391 00:21:41,334 --> 00:21:42,701 -Yes, it's lovely. 392 00:21:42,701 --> 00:21:48,033 -Okay. That relationship I thought was so lovely. 393 00:21:48,033 --> 00:21:51,467 Gosh, you're good at those relationship things. 394 00:21:51,467 --> 00:21:56,734 I mean, I think you did a great -- and the twins, 395 00:21:56,734 --> 00:22:00,968 there's twins that run in the family and these two -- 396 00:22:00,968 --> 00:22:07,467 and this set of twins, women, meet by chance in Berlin. 397 00:22:07,467 --> 00:22:12,901 So, you kind of get the feeling that Berlin in the 90s 398 00:22:12,901 --> 00:22:14,400 was the place 399 00:22:14,400 --> 00:22:17,601 where everything was happening and the place to be, 400 00:22:17,601 --> 00:22:22,934 they meet across a crowd in a club and see one another 401 00:22:22,934 --> 00:22:24,334 and it's like looking in the mirror. 402 00:22:24,334 --> 00:22:26,200 I love that story. 403 00:22:26,200 --> 00:22:27,767 -Well, thank you. Thank you. 404 00:22:27,767 --> 00:22:31,234 Yes, I think you're right about Berlin in the 90s 405 00:22:31,234 --> 00:22:33,868 was the place where everything could happen. 406 00:22:33,868 --> 00:22:38,167 I think in a way it paralleled Weimar Berlin in the 20s -- 407 00:22:38,167 --> 00:22:39,367 -Right. 408 00:22:39,367 --> 00:22:40,634 -Which drew artists from around the world 409 00:22:40,634 --> 00:22:43,133 and there were no rules. 410 00:22:43,133 --> 00:22:45,033 The rule was that there was no rules, 411 00:22:45,033 --> 00:22:48,033 that there were no rules. And so, 412 00:22:48,033 --> 00:22:51,467 it was a big free for all then after the fall of the wall. 413 00:22:51,467 --> 00:22:59,934 And so, these kinds of accidents and coincidences were common, 414 00:22:59,934 --> 00:23:02,434 I mean unexpected but common. 415 00:23:02,434 --> 00:23:06,534 And so, it ultimately felt like the perfect backdrop 416 00:23:06,534 --> 00:23:10,067 for this collision and ultimately collusion 417 00:23:10,067 --> 00:23:12,334 of all of these disparate cousins. 418 00:23:12,334 --> 00:23:17,000 -Right. In your mind do you know why the girl -- 419 00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:20,033 the cousin, the twins were separated? 420 00:23:20,033 --> 00:23:24,701 Why they had not been -- I mean in your mind 421 00:23:24,701 --> 00:23:26,400 because it's one -- -Yeah. 422 00:23:26,400 --> 00:23:29,267 -Of those things that you leave open-ended? 423 00:23:29,267 --> 00:23:31,133 -Right, untended. -Yeah. 424 00:23:31,133 --> 00:23:33,601 -Yeah, you know, I was surprised by that 425 00:23:33,601 --> 00:23:38,767 other twin popping up too and I thought I would -- 426 00:23:38,767 --> 00:23:41,234 I thought, I mean I wanted to resolve it 427 00:23:41,234 --> 00:23:43,400 before the end of the book and I couldn't. 428 00:23:43,400 --> 00:23:47,234 I really couldn't figure it out. And one of the twins' mothers 429 00:23:47,234 --> 00:23:49,968 is kind of languishing in a nursing home 430 00:23:49,968 --> 00:23:55,300 and kind of against revealing any secrets 431 00:23:55,300 --> 00:23:56,734 and the other mother was dead. 432 00:23:56,734 --> 00:24:00,534 And so, I'm not sure they find out 433 00:24:00,534 --> 00:24:02,100 or at least, I don't know yet. 434 00:24:02,100 --> 00:24:03,934 Who knows, I may have to write another book. 435 00:24:03,934 --> 00:24:05,334 -Yeah, right. 436 00:24:05,334 --> 00:24:07,667 -Find out what happens to them, you know. 437 00:24:07,667 --> 00:24:09,133 -Well, I love -- what I loved 438 00:24:09,133 --> 00:24:10,634 was the uncertainty. 439 00:24:10,634 --> 00:24:13,200 I love the uncertainty of the ending in Dreaming 440 00:24:13,200 --> 00:24:21,033 in Cuban and I love the uncertainty of the twins' fates. 441 00:24:21,033 --> 00:24:26,801 And did you get pushback from, you know, your editor about, 442 00:24:26,801 --> 00:24:30,968 you know, needing to tie it up more neatly? 443 00:24:30,968 --> 00:24:32,334 Do you know what I mean? 444 00:24:32,334 --> 00:24:34,901 -Yes. No, I didn't. -That's great. 445 00:24:34,901 --> 00:24:37,834 -I mean I felt more pressure on myself 446 00:24:37,834 --> 00:24:40,334 to at least figure it out. 447 00:24:40,334 --> 00:24:45,100 But like Celia, which is how we started off the conversation, 448 00:24:45,100 --> 00:24:46,601 I didn't really know. 449 00:24:46,601 --> 00:24:49,100 I mean I could have gone one way or the other. 450 00:24:49,100 --> 00:24:50,234 -Right. 451 00:24:50,234 --> 00:24:53,767 -And with these twins whose origin story 452 00:24:53,767 --> 00:24:55,200 is still unknown to me, 453 00:24:55,200 --> 00:24:58,801 I have theories about what happened but I'm not sure. 454 00:24:58,801 --> 00:25:00,267 I'm not sure yet. 455 00:25:00,267 --> 00:25:02,968 -Yeah. Do you think you'll continue 456 00:25:02,968 --> 00:25:07,801 writing about that family one way or another or -- 457 00:25:07,801 --> 00:25:09,167 -I'm not really sure. 458 00:25:09,167 --> 00:25:12,934 I'm very interested in Azul, you know. 459 00:25:12,934 --> 00:25:14,167 -Yes. 460 00:25:14,167 --> 00:25:17,400 -Who at six has so much residence with uncle 461 00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:21,434 and his drag queen brilliant translator uncle. 462 00:25:21,434 --> 00:25:26,734 -And his -- and Ivanito's mother who appears. 463 00:25:26,734 --> 00:25:29,000 -His mother, right. His crazy grandmother. I mean -- 464 00:25:29,000 --> 00:25:30,000 -Yeah. 465 00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:31,100 -He's only six. -Right. 466 00:25:31,100 --> 00:25:32,934 -And he's already absorbing so much, 467 00:25:32,934 --> 00:25:37,801 including a vivid imagination including -- 468 00:25:37,801 --> 00:25:41,667 I mean he starts seeing ghosts and either having dreams 469 00:25:41,667 --> 00:25:43,968 or traveling with this ghost to the Arctic. 470 00:25:43,968 --> 00:25:46,033 All kinds of things happen and so, 471 00:25:46,033 --> 00:25:48,400 I don't think there's anyone 472 00:25:48,400 --> 00:25:50,801 who is rife for a follow up -- -Yeah. Yeah. 473 00:25:50,801 --> 00:25:52,634 -It might be him. -Yes. 474 00:25:52,634 --> 00:25:54,501 -But again, I'm not sure. 475 00:25:54,501 --> 00:25:57,300 I never know what's going to happen. 476 00:25:57,300 --> 00:26:00,334 I mean that's really the story of my life here. 477 00:26:00,334 --> 00:26:03,501 -Well, I know that I and the rest of your many, 478 00:26:03,501 --> 00:26:05,467 many, many fans 479 00:26:05,467 --> 00:26:09,501 are thrilled to see Celia and the family come back 480 00:26:09,501 --> 00:26:12,501 and thrilled to read Vanishing Maps 481 00:26:12,501 --> 00:26:16,234 and just look forward to many more Cristina Garcia novels. 482 00:26:16,234 --> 00:26:19,300 -Oh, well you're very kind. Thank you so much. 483 00:26:19,300 --> 00:26:21,300 -Thank you so much for being on the show. 484 00:26:21,300 --> 00:26:29,133 ♪♪ 485 00:26:29,133 --> 00:26:36,968 ♪♪