Set in Havana in 1938, Jose Baul Bernardo’s novel captures the fell, smells, and sounds of the quickly changing tropical metropolis after the Great Depression .Lorenzo and Marguita are a happy pair of newlyweds expecting their first child. They have rented a small, bright apartment where they are perfectly content. However, the Depression has ruined Lorenzo’s father’s business and now, to make ends meet, his parents have insisted the young couple move in with them and help with expenses.A vivacious ,working- class girl from a noisy Cuban family ,Marguita has qualms about joining Lorenz’s austere Spanish household .Lorenzo’s eldest sister, Lucinda, died of consumption and their mother,Carmela,always wears black .A younger sister ,Asuncion,is deaf, and the middle sister Lolo, is a bitter, angry spinster.However,Lolo’s hostile demeanor masks feelings of inadequacy. Still a virgin, Lolo is really curious about sex. More out of inquisitiveness than maliciousness, she spies on the young couple making love, witnessing an intimate act considered indecent by upright, upper-class ladies.Marguita is so traumatized that she runs home to tell her mother, Dolores, a wise woman in her fifties who knows just what to do.

First, she contrives to have her daughter and son-in-law rent own little house and cleverly engineers improvements to make the place livable.Then, she schemes to buy a refrigerator ‘‘on the cheap” and even manages to get a crib. Dolores, who has her husband, Maximiliano, wrapped around her little finger, talks him into making sacrifices for the daughter they both adore. But even snug in her comfy home in her old neighborhood, Marguita can’t forget Lolo’s terrible affront. She wants vengeance.

When their baby boy is boy, the happy couple calls him Lorenzo Manuel, Manuel being the name of the physician who delivered him.Immidiately the doctor and his wife, Celina, assume they are to be the godparents and, in order to avoid squabbles, Lorenzo and Marguita acquiesce. Celina plans an elaborate christening party, and even though Marguita has sworn never to forgive Lolo, she is no gracious way to exclude her from the festivities. At the gathering, two unexpected things happen: the ardently anticlerical Maximiliano becomes friends with the priest, Father Francisco, and Lolo catches the eye of – of all people-the priest’s acolyte, Father Alonso.

In the meantime, Marguita is becoming a wise woman in her own right. When Lorenzo wins some money at Jai alai, she uses charm to get him to invest in his own education. She persuades him to take night courses at the university while continuing to work at a bookstore .At the same time; she begins to put money aside so they can eventually buy their own house.

When Collazo, the bookshop owner, decides to start a cultural club at the beach, the whole community attends the building’s “christening”. Father Alonnso, whose homosexual leanings had led him to the priesthood in the first place, sees Lolo at the event and is again taken with her beautiful gypsy eyes, his remind him of a boy he once liked. After the ceremony, he and Father Fransisco go for a swim in their underwear, and then Alonso takes off his boxers to let them dry. When Lolo finds him napping buck naked on the beach, she practically jumps on him, and nature takes its course.

For Alonso the event is liberating- a confirmation that he is a real man.His new self-confidence leads him not to give up the priesthood, but to embrace his mission with greater zeal.However, his new community is shattered by the news that Lolo is pregnant .Although he offers to leave the priesthood and marry her, Lolo knows that this is the wrong solution. Marguita, too, is pregnant, and her pregnancy is no less troubling than Lolo’s. The economic situation is so bad that she and Lorenzo cannot afford to have another baby. A wise older woman helps Lolo out of her predicament, unexpectedly solving Marguita’s problem as well. At Lorenzo Manuel’s birthday party Marguita and Lolo, thanks to the prodding of the wise Dolores, finally open up to each other and Marguita drops her grudge.

The Wise Women of Havana is a page-turner full of engaging characters whose fates we really care about.Bernardo brings to life a pre-Castro Cuba where things were though, but life was beautiful just the same. He does not gloss over the real social ills of the period-poverty, machismo, class snobbery- but focuses on positive human qualities. Best of all, he produces an array of wise, warm women who win our hearts.

The Wise Women of Havana , by Jose Raul Bernardo.New York: Rayo, 2002.

My rating: 4.0 stars
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