Received from emmejo as a winner of the Canada/US Happy Day Sweeps. :)

In this deeply stirring novel, acclaimed author Cristina García follows one extraordinary family through four generations, from China to Cuba to America. Wonderfully evocative of time and place, rendered in the lyrical prose that is García’s hallmark, Monkey Hunting is an emotionally resonant tale of immigration, assimilation, and the prevailing integrity of self.

Sending as a RABCK to MmeClinton. Enjoy!

So nice to find this beautiful book in my mailbox this afternoon.... it looks like a real winner, and I appreciate both the positive review and your continued friendship!!! Merci, mon amie Lauraloo!

Oh how I love to get up when I am ready (which is about 7:30) and not at 6:15 to get ready for school, then leisurely go about a morning, feeding the animals and making a cup of good coffee with which to sit for an hour reading. The rest of the day will fall into proper place (today the usual Saturday chores, then I'll head up to school to write end-of-trimester comments or some of the remaining three college recommendations I need to do) where I will stay until the Upper School Play begins at 7 p.m...... if I feel up to it, since I have a pretty miserable cold since Thursday (of course, these things usually hit me when grades and comments are due....) Anyway, this morning I finished Monkey Hunting by Cristina Garcia. I needed to read a book with a G author for a bookring I joined heaven knows how long ago! A book you may have never heard of, but a very nice read altogether. The anchor character is Chen Pan, a Chinese young man who in his desperation to improve his life, signs on to go to Cuba for eight years to earn money to return to China wealthy and head of a great family clan. Of course he has really signed on unwittingly to be shipped off as a slave on the sugar plantations of Cuba, the second hub of this multi-generational tale which goes back and forth between China, Cuba and a bit of New York City, showing how one man's life leads to a diaspora due to life and history. It also goes back and forth in time, and not particularly logically; you have to pay attention to the dates marking the beginning of each chapter. It begins in Amoy, China in 1857 when Chen Pan leaves for Cuba (from when he never returns, although progeny will) and ends with him in old age in Havana in 1917. He escaped the sugar plantations, hiding out in the backcountry (still much forested at that time) and eventually establishes himself in the city as a vendor of collected objects (The Lucky Find is his shop). He "buys" a former black slave woman with a newborn child with no intention of making her a slave. Eventually, in fact, they become a couple and found the clan he so dreamed of. You are taken through a whirlwind in this book.... the Spanish domination of Cuba, the Revolution, those who stay and those who don't, China at several periods including the Communist early years, Vietnam.... all fascinating. Unlike many of the Chinese immigrants, Chen Pan succeeds largely because he is a thinking human and flows with the times and his life. He "...thought of how a man could start out with one idea--like sailing off to Cuba to get rich enough to return home an important man--and end up with another life altogether. This never could have happened in China. There the future was always a loyal continuation of the past." A future grandchild born in China (who pretends to be male for the first part of her life) becomes a teacher and is later persecuted for her ties to Westerners. But I loved this paragraph which feels so much like me: "In the evenings, I correct my students' papers, prepare tea, and read for hours. Reading is my one luxury. It does not save me from want, nor will it free me from death. Certainly, it prevents me from getting a full night's sleep. But immersed in the shadows of other worlds, I find a measure of peace." Her comments on the later generation that allowed itself to be swallowed up by rabid political demagoguery feel eerie as well: "The new generation, I fear, is largely without history or culture, boys and girls weaned only on slogans. Guns have taken the place of intellect. In the old days, it was not unusual for millers to blind the mules they used to turn their grindstones. Is this what we have become? A country of blind mules? Where are the ideas that took a lifetime to comprehend.? "

sending off in the mail to Florida as part of the bookring "US authors beginning with G".... hoping someone will pick it over another book in the package, as it is a good read and has already had some good travels!

Received as part of the "G" bookring. I will be replacing this one with one of my own. Thank you!