Every Wednesday The
Latina Book Club will feature
excerpts
from exciting novels by Latino authors.
This excerpt seems most apropos because of the death of the real Fidel Castro this past week.
THE DEATH OF FIDEL PEREZ
By Elizabeth Huergo
Unbridled Books
*Excerpt
One particular good citizen, Saturnina,
was squatting on a doorstep just a few blocks away, feeding a hard biscuit to a
hungry stray dog, when she heard the news that Fidel and his brother had
fallen. Saturnina rose from her corolla of ragged skirts and began to walk
toward the throng of people gathering before the building and spilling over
into the street, blocking the morning traffic. Though she could see nothing of
what had happened, in a swirl of petticoats and skirts she began to mimic the
words she heard: “¡Socorro! ¡Fidel calló! Help! Fidel has fallen!”
Saturnina, Sybil
of the succulent bit of news that lodges like a string of pork gristle in the
space between back teeth, began to fidget and whirl her way through the edges
of the gathering crowd, calling out what she had instantly accepted as fact:
The apocalypse that would precede the return of her son Tomás, whom she had
lost decades earlier in the violent interregnum between Fulgencio Batista and
Fidel Castro, had begun.
“¡Fidel calló!
His brother has fallen, too!”
Stepping and
swirling, the old woman tripped along the farthest perimeter of the bloody
scene. As she passed along the streets calling out her news, housewives peered
through rusted iron rails, pulling back quickly into darkened interiors. Men
and women on errands or on their way to work or school stopped to listen, then
sped on, looking back over their shoulders nervously.
*Excerpt from the novel THE DEATH OF FIDEL PEREZ by Elizabeth Huergo printed by permission of Unbridled Books. All rights reserved.
BOOK SUMMARY: On July
26, 2003, the 50th anniversary of the Moncada Army
Barracks raid that sparked the Cuban revolution, something unexpected happens.
When Fidel Pérez and his brother accidentally tumble to their deaths from their
Havana balcony, the neighbors’ outcry, “Fidel has fallen!” is misinterpreted by
those who hear it. That wishful mistake quickly ripples outward on the running
cries of the people, and it gloriously reawakens a suppressed city.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Elizabeth Huergo was born in Havana and immigrated to
the United States at an early age as a political refugee. A published poet and
story writer, she lives in Virginia. THE DEATH OF FIDEL PEREZ is her first
novel. Visit her at www.elizabethhuergo.com.
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