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Ana Menéndez is a real find, a young writer who is gifted in talent years beyond her
age. Her collection of short stories, IN CUBA I WAS A GERMAN SHEPHERD, is filled with
profoundly moving portraits of men and women, in Havana and in the U. S., who have to come
to grips with the realities of Castro's Cuba and the consequences of trying to maintain
their traditions while living in a new world. By concentrating on individuals, young and
old, those with memories of the old world and those without, Menéndez draws us into lives
that exude so much emotion that we feel as if we know these people ourselves.
The title story was included in BEST NEW AMERICAN VOICES 2000 and won her a Pushcart
Prize, the prestigious award that goes to short story writers. Menéndez exhibits an
extremely sharp ability to find the exact moments, the right situations, to truly
illuminate a character's inner struggles, inner beauty, inner demons. Perhaps it was her
time as a journalist in Miami that helped her hone her simple but intense writing style
--- nary is an unnecessary phrase or word used. The rhythms of her work can only be called
distinctly human, as in the banter between the four elderly men playing dominoes in IN
CUBA. It is sometimes rather painful to read some of these stories, so deep into her
creations' hearts does Menéndez go.
The culture shock that her characters experience is nothing new to Menéndez --- her
parents came to Los Angeles from Cuba in the early '60s. As with most stories about
immigrant families, the dividing line drawn between the old world and the new causes
endless suffering for the adventurous ones who tried to find a place to fit in in the
world beyond their birth shores. IN CUBA I WAS A GERMAN SHEPHERD rounds up all the pain
these men and women feel and pass on to the subsequent generations and makes it into the
highest form of art. A stunning debut.
--- Reviewed by Jana Siciliano
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