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Hotel Cuba

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

"Deeply moving, compulsively readable, Hotel Cuba chronicles the early twentieth century immigrant experience with a profound understanding and crackling urgency I've not previously encountered. I could not put it down and I could not stop thinking about it long after I'd reached its stunning conclusion. In short: You need to read this book. Right now."—Joanna Rakoff, bestselling author of My Salinger Year

"Thick with the humid air of a Havana summer night, rich with mesmerizing detail, Hotel Cuba will grab you and not let you go."—Dolen Perkins-Valdez, author of Take My Hand, Balm and Wench

From the award-winning author of The View from Stalin's Head, a stunning novel about two sheltered Russian Jewish sisters, desperate to get to America to make a new life, who find themselves trapped in the sultry, hedonistic world of 1920s Havana.

Fleeing the chaos of World War I and the terror of the Soviet Revolution, practical, sensible Pearl Kahn and her lovestruck, impulsive younger sibling Frieda sail for America to join their sister in New York. But discriminatory new immigration laws bar their entry, and the young women are turned back at Ellis Island. With few options, Pearl and Frieda head for Havana, Cuba, convinced they will find a way to overcome this setback.

At first, life in big-city Prohibition-era Havana is overwhelming, like nothing Pearl and Frieda have ever experienced—or could have ever imagined in the rural shtetl where they grew up. As the sisters begin to adjust, their plans for going to America together become complicated. Frieda falls for the not-so-dreamy man of her dreams while Pearl's life opens up unexpectedly, offering her a taste of freedom and heady romance, and an opportunity to build a future on her own terms. Though to do so, she must confront her past and the shame she has long carried.

A heartbreaking, epic family story, Hotel Cuba explores the profound courage of two women displaced from their home who strive to create a new future in an enticing and dangerous world far different from anything they have ever known.

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    • Booklist

      April 15, 2023
      Pearl and her younger sister, Frieda, never planned to go to Cuba. It's 1922, and what was once Russia has become part of Poland, so they join other Jews fleeing small border towns for the promise of America. But changing immigration laws make that destination a dream, and instead they come to the island nation as a temporary way station. While her teenage sister dreams of joining her fianc� in America, determined Pearl goes about finding the sisters work and lodging so they can cross the small but seemingly insurmountable distance between the two countries. Steeped in rich detail about the challenges of coming to a foreign country and constantly guessing at the intentions of those offering help, this is a nuanced narrative that uncovers the harsh realities of uprooting your life, even if you reach your destination. It's impossible not to cheer on Pearl, whose keen observations and desire to be her own boss push her through setbacks and trauma in a riveting journey to find her own freedom in an unjust world.

      COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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  • English

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