The Aguero Sisters (35 page)
Read The Aguero Sisters Online
Authors: Cristina Garcia
Q: Many reviewers have described you as a “magical realist.” How would you define magical realism?
A: To be a magical realist, from my point of view, is to use reality as a departure point for the imagination. It means having a lack of imaginative inhibition and taking reality to its furthest possible extremeâand then some. In may ways it's harder to do than realism. You have to be that much more specific if you're going to have your readers suspend their disbelief. The specificity, texture, and detail that you need in order to pull it
off is much more demanding than that needed for a book that merely records daily events.
Q: Do you consider yourself a magical realist?
A: There are definitely surrealistic elements in my books, and I'm definitely influenced by magical realism as it exists in contemporary Latin America fiction and elsewhere. My first encounter with magical realism, however, was with Kafka's
Metamorphosis
. There are stories with magical and mystical events from many cultures and traditions. And although all traditions contain some elements of mysticism, I find those of South America to be particularly baroque and lush.
Q: In exploring the reasons Ignacio Agüero murdered his wife, one reviewer has written, “Blanca betrays her husband â¦Â but he is so much under her spell that only by killing her can he break free.” Do you agree with this interpretation?
A: I won't dispute that interpretation any more than I would dispute fourteen other interpretations that I've read. I wanted to leave readers to draw their own conclusions when it came to deciding why Ignacio murdered his wife. I'm not really sure myself as to what ultimately pushed him to pull the trigger. It was a confluence of many events at that precise moment that made the murder inevitable. If the moment had come five minutes later, maybe he wouldn't have pulled the trigger.
Q: Various chapters of this novel are written from various perspectives. Was it difficult moving from one “voice” to the next?
A: I like using different voices to tell a story because I find it creates a varying texture for the narration that you don't get if you use a monolithic omniscient voice. A multiplicity of voices is also a more effective way to surround what I'm trying to get at in my stories.
Q: Does the sisters' eventual reconciliation, and the unraveling of the mystery surrounding their mother's death, imply the possibility of a national reconciliation?
A: That wasn't my intention but I certainly see how one could interpret it that way. I personally would love a national reconciliation, but that wasn't the aim of this book.
Q: There was a lot of media attention paid to the Pope's visit to Cuba in 1998. What are your impressions of that visit and what do you think it accomplished?
A: I think the Pope highlighted the societal downside of the revolution and what the revolution has done to families and to people's priorities in Cuba. When I visited Cuba, I was dismayed at the utilitarian nature of many relationships. It's almost as if leaps of faith, true romance, even basic optimism, are in short supply there. Cuba can be a rigid, closed off country. That's been changing a lot because of tourism. But the kind of access or exposure provided by tourism is not necessarily the best thing for a developirig society. I hope the Pope's visit will create a bridge that will ultimately reconnect Cuba to the rest of the world.
Q: Your debut novel received much critical attention including a National Book Award nomination. One reviewer recently characterized you as “a new star in the American literary firmament.” What sort of pressure comes with that kind of success?
A: I never realized how successful my first book was. I was pregnant when
Dreaming in Cuban
was published and gave birth six months after it first hit the bookstores. As a result, I was rather preoccupied. It wasn't until
The Agüero Sisters
came out that I did a real book tour, met a number of my readers, and began to fathom the impact of my work. Having said that, however, I must admit that I did feel quite a bit of pressure to
follow up with a strong second novel. My efforts in that direction became a struggle. In fact,
The Agüero Sisters
is my third book. I worked for two years on another novel that I eventually decided to shelve.
Q: How does the writing process work for you?
A: I work in a small office outside my home that has no telephone or means of communication with the outside world. Ideally I try to put in six hours of writing per day but I rarely accomplish that. Usually I end up getting four or five hours of writing time per day. The key, for me, is that I make my time and space inviolate. I allow no visitors and no one knows where I am. It's only when I know I won't be disturbed for several hours on end that things begin to coalesce. At home I get too distracted. There are too many interruptions. I need that inviolate time and space to work.
Q: Do you ever suffer from writer's block?
A: I did with that moribund second novel. At one point, I was stuck for months. That's because the book wasn't viable. I knew it, but it took me a long time to admit it.
Dreaming in Cuban
had been percolating inside me since the early 1980s. I gave it all I had. But I didn't realize how depleted I was after it was finishedâa depletion that was compounded by having a child. When I began
The Agüero Sisters
, after taking time off and struggling with the second novel, I feared that
Dreaming in Cuban
was the only book I had in me. So I decided to write
The Agüero Sisters
as a book for myself. I let it develop organically. I didn't invest it with all the anxiety and pressure that I had felt while working on the follow-up to my debut novel. As a result, the writing became pleasurable once more and created its own momentum.
Q: What advice do you offer for the young writer who is just starting out?
A: You need to carve out, and protect, uninterrupted time for yourself on a daily basis. Getting in the habit of taking time seriously is important because time is the ultimate factory for these novels. They don't get written without it. And you have to be comfortable with solitude because novel writing is not a collaborative process. Party animals need not apply when it comes to being a novelist.
- Why do you think GarcÃa chose to write this book using several voice and perspectives? With which characters do you most closely identify? Do you think this use of multiple narrators interrupts the flow of the story or enriches it?
- How do you think the Agüero sisters' feelings about their own childhood and their parents have affected their relationships with their husbands, their own children, and each other? What things do the sisters have in common? What sets them apart from each other?
- How would you compare and contrast the different styles of femininity displayed by the two sisters in this story?
- Why do you think Ignacio Agüero killed his wife? How do his lies about that event affect his children?
- When they are children, Reina tried to tell Constancia what she had learned about the death of their mother but Constancia steadfastly refused to listen. Why do you think she so desperately needed to believe her father's version of that event?
- One reviewer wrote, “Blanca betrays her husband, but he is so much under her spell that only by killing her can he break free.” Do you agree with this interpretation of the events that led to Blanca's death?
- Each sister seemed to be loyal to only one parent. Why do you think this was the case? How were allegiances formed within the Agüero family? What allegiances exist within your own family? Are you closer to one parent or another? How about your own siblings? Are they closer to one parent or another?
- Which of the two sisters do you see as more dominantâReina or Constancia? Does that change after their final, physical confrontation?
- Why do you think Reina has made herself the keeper of her father's books and specimens? Her lover has asked her to clear these relics from their love nest but she has refused. Why?
- Why do you think Constancia wakes up looking exactly like her own mother? What affect does this have on her and, later, on Reina?
- Much of this story focuses on family themes and the bitter schism that exists between members of the same family. Have you ever experienced similar divisiveness in your own family or observed it in other families? If so, how have you dealt with those divisions?
- What surprised you most about Garcia's depiction of life in Cuba and among the exile community in Florida?
- The Agüero Sisters
focuses on the difficulties that arise when confronting the truth. Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you've had to confront a difficult truth? How do you go about letting go of an old reality in favor of a newer truth? - What's the difference between Garcia's presentation of male versus female characters? Do you see Garcia's male characters as fully developed individuals?
- What role does mysticism play in the lives of both Constancia and Reina?
- Why do you think Reina takes her father's twelve-gauge shotgun and tosses it into the sea? Reina walked away from an opportunity to defect from Cuba in the mid-1980s. Why do you think she changed her mind and decided to leave the country in the early '90s?
- Why do you think Heberto decided to join a revolutionary group planning another invasion of Cuba? What does Constancia think of his decision?
- What motivates Silvestre to kill Gonzalo?
- What do you think goes through Constancia's mind as she finally reads her father's diary and receives confirmation of Reina's story about the death of their mother?
Â
The Agüero Sisters
“An extraordinary new novel does justice to the Cuba of history as well as the Cuba of imagination.⦠GarcÃa has crafted a beautifully rounded work of art, as warm and wry and sensuous as the island she so clearly loves.”
â
Time
“In 1992, Cristina GarcÃa's
Dreaming in Cuban
announced the presence of a new star in the American literary firmament.⦠GarcÃa's remarkable second novel,
The Agüero Sisters
, is even better, a deeper, more profound plunge into the mysteries of loyalty, love and identity (national, familial and otherwise).⦠Cristina GarcÃa again proves herself a gifted chronicler of exile's promise and peril.”
â
Newsday
“Five years after her debut, the former journalist has made good on her early promise with a superb second novel,
The Agüero Sisters
.⦠With sensual prose and a plot that captures the angst of the Cuban diaspora â¦Â GarcÃa seductively draws up in and refuses to let go.”
â
Newsweek
“The conventions of magic realism can either amplify the story and give it resonance or fragment the narrative, draining it of clarity. GarcÃa's beautifully written second novel â¦Â seems to embody both extremes.⦠Her prose is lush and rhythmic, so that the novel has an almost feverish air.”
â
Booklist
“A bold and very richly detailed portrait â¦Â Fluid, graceful, and extremely rewarding: a work of high seriousness and rich detail.”
â
Kirkus Reviews
“Cristina GarcÃa neatly sidesteps the curse of the much-feted first novel â¦Â with the assured
The Agüero Sisters
, a vibrant tale of a repressed Manhattan cosmetics saleswoman and her sexy, Havana-based sister that blends family, culture, and GarcÃa's shapely prose into a rich, velvety world one is loath to leave.”
â
Elle
“This is no paint-by-numbers allegory. GarcÃa's characters are three-dimensional and her novel is filled with rich and compelling detail.”
â
San Francisco Chronicle
C
RISTINA
G
ARCÃA
was born in Havana and grew up in New York City. Her first novel,
Dreaming in Cuban
, was nominated for a National Book Award and has been widely translated. Ms. GarcÃa has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a Hodder Fellow at Princeton University, and the recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award. She lives in California with her daughter, Pilar.
New from
the author of Dreaming in Cuban,
Monkey Hunting, and The Agüero Sisters
A Handbook to Luck
A novel
by
Cristina GarcÃa
With its cast of brilliantly drawn characters, its graceful movement through time, and its subtle revelation of the essential dreams, hopes, and doubts of ordinary people whose lives are made extraordinary by circumstance both tragic and joyful,
A Handbook to Luck
is Cristina GarcÃa's most beautiful and deeply emotional novel yet.
