The Agüero Sisters

The Aguero Sisters starts with a bang (pun totally intended). Ignacio and Blanca Aguero are a husband and wife naturalist team, slogging through the Zapata swamp shooting specimens for a U.S. based museum. Suddenly forty-four year old Ignacio turns the gun on his wife and pulls the trigger...The mystery of what really happened in the swamp on that day in 1948 doesn't become clear until much, much later.
The rest of the novel follows the lives of Ignacio's adult daughters and their very different lives. Constancia Aguero Cruz lives in New York, married to a tobacco shop owner with a daughter in Oahu and a son in Morningside Heights, New York. She has been kept apart from her sister in Cuba for as long as she can remember, but she doesn't show more really know why. Reina was only six when her mother died. She still lives in Cuba as an electrician and mechanic and has many passions, seducing married men. She has a daughter, Dulcita, in Madrid, Spain. Interspersed between this current-day, third-person narrative is Ignacio's first person account of his life, starting with remembering his parents, Reinaldo and Soledad Aguero. Through his accounts, the history of Ignacio and his daughters becomes clearer and clearer, like sediment settling in the bottom of a glass of murky water once the agitation of stirring has stopped. show less

The sisters in question are from Cuba, with the book being narrated by the two very different siblings, their father and occasionally their children. The sisters are very different, Reina is a companhera electriction living in Cuba, while is a very succesful make-up seller in New York. The two have never been close, Reina, known as companhera amazona, is a practical woman, in touch with herself and her sexuality. Her sister, on the other hand, Constancia deals in products meant to prolong youth and beauty, but in a way that hides the true person. The elephant in the room is their mother, and her death years before as well as Reina's paternity. Family relationships in an ever-changing Cuban world.

There is a fantastical element to the show more book, strange occurences as well as votives to the god Chango. Nothing is black and white, which makes it an engaging book. show less

The Aguero Sisters is a story of a Cuban family and their complicated relationships. It is told mainly from the point of view of the two sisters, Reina and Constancia, but also includes chapters in the voices of their children and father, jumping around in both time and space. I found it difficult to follow this disjointed story and at some point gave up on trying to track each character's familial relationships. There are many elements of spirituality and magic, and strong sensory descriptions everywhere, particularly smell and taste. There are lots of poetic turns of phrase, some of which I found jarring. There were times I didn't know quite what to make of this story, but continued on out of of curiosity as the Aguero family secret show more is gradually revealed. In the end, I was vaguely dissatisfied, as Garcia leaves it to the reader to puzzle out the characters' motivations, which are puzzling indeed. If this had not been my own book club pick (before I had read it), I don't know that I would have finished it. show less

De la autora de la muy aclamada Soñar en cubano, viene una hechizante novela: la historia suntuosa de dos hermanas cubanas que encarnan el romanticismo excesivo y el pragmatismo severo de la diáspora cubana. Constancia Agüero se fue de Cuba y obtuvo éxito en Nueva York. Mujer de negocios, ella es una vendedora sin igual de productos de belleza y por eso hasta gana un Condillac rosado. Reina Agüero, una electricista cuyas manos hacen la luz y deshacen a los hombres, se quedó en Cuba. Ahora, estas dos mujeres deleitosamente excéntricas se reúnen en Miami después de treinta años de ausencia. Y de sus vidas entrelazadas, Cristina García hilvana tantas historias que hay tela para ocho novelas ordinarias: el suicidio de un padre y show more la muerte misteriosa de una madre; una epidemia de visiones de la Virgen María; la Luna que fecunda a una mujer; la poderosa fuerza de los santos afrocubanos. show less