Telex From Cuba

Telex From Cuba, Rachel Kushner’s début novel, was first published in America to great acclaim in 2008, earning bestselling status and a short-listing for the National Book Award.

Now, some six years on, hoping to capitalise on the success of her second novel, The Flamethrowers, it finally crosses the Atlantic as a Vintage paperback.

Meticulously researched, and boasting a complex structure of story-lines and multiple perspectives, the novel presents a vibrant depiction of the tumultuous years leading to the overthrow of Batista’s government by Castro-led hill rebels.

The bulk of the action takes place in the Oriente province, at the island’s eastern end: in the towns of Preston, where 14,000 workers, mainly immigrants from nearby islands, slave for less than a pittance on the 330,000 acres of sugar cane land owned by a massive American corporation, the United Fruit Company; and in nearby Nicaro, home to a US-run nickel mine.

These are places out of time, at least for the privileged American families who run the operations, a throwback to the era of white rule, with the inevitable class distinctions — even at the ladder’s lowest rungs — heavily underlined.

Narration is delivered mainly from the clear-eyed perspectives of the youngest generations: KC Stites, whose father runs the sugar operation, offers a hindsight view, glancing backwards from a Florida retirement, while Everly Lederer, the daughter of the nickel mine’s manager, gives a more immediate vantage, of the years leading up to the revolution. The comparisons and contrasting impressions paint a surprisingly vivid and almost dreamy picture, utterly captivating in its authenticity. And for added spice, a third point of view is brought to bear, in the shape of exotic dancer Rachel K (the author’s own wishful alter-ego?). A Mata Hari type, she links the gutter with the stratosphere, bringing to life the sultry and treacherous Havana nights defined by a string of heavyweight lovers that runs the gamut from Nazi gunrunners to presidents, rebel leaders and even KC’s father.

This is Cuba, for too long a place almost indivisible from corruption. For decades, governments have risen and tumbled, but deals could always be struck for anyone with cash to spend because everything had its price and nothing ever really changed. So when the rebels descend from the mountains and put the cane plantations to the torch, it takes time for everyone to recognise and accept that a New Order has been announced, one no longer willing to compromise.

As a first offering, this is a piece of fiction quite breathtaking in its assurance, a multi-layered depiction of the United Fruit Company’s involvement in Cuba during a turbulent period in that island’s history but also a beautifully weighted treatise on colonial attitudes, capitalism, racism and the interactions and divisions between cultures and classes.