The Aguero Sisters (36 page)

“A BEAUTIFULLY ROUNDED WORK OF ART, as warm and wry and sensuous as the island she so clearly loves … The heart of her novel lies in a funny, extraordinary other world where men, hit by lightning, start to read everything backward and women swallow silver dust to cure themselves of hallucinations.”

—
Time

“Wonderful … Astonishing … Dazzling … 
The Agüero Sisters
is indeed impressive, a book about revenge and love and hatred but especially about courage, in all its forms: courage to antagonize a regime, courage to be reconciled with one's own past, courage to find the truth.… García is an immensely talented writer, whose work, like that of Jessica Hagedorn, Sherman Alexie, and David Foster Wallace, is renewing American fiction.”

—
The Nation

“Remarkable … Lyrical and rich in metaphor … García is an enthralling storyteller.…
Dreaming in Cuban
announced the presence of a new star in the American literary firmament.…
The Agüero Sisters
is even better, a deeper, more profound plunge into the mysteries of loyalty, love, and identity.”

—
Newsday

“A rich and complex novel about the entanglements of family and the possibility of redemption that comes with knowing the story of the past. In
The Agüero Sisters
Cristina García offers us a redemptive and involving story that takes us across generations to the island and back to the mainland of the heart.”

— Julia Alvarez

“This book is warmly human, deeply concerned with nature (not least our human one), and extremely well written. It deserves to be a bestseller. I haven't been so impressed since Alejo Carpentier's
The Lost Steps
.”

— John Fowles

“Bold and very richly detailed … Fluid, graceful, and extremely rewarding: a work of high seriousness and rich detail.”

—
Kirkus Reviews
(starred review)

“A RICH, VELVETY WORLD ONE IS LOATH TO LEAVE.”

—
Elle

“
The Agüero Sisters
illuminates the troubled relationship between parents and children, between Cuba and the United States, and between secrets and lies, with beautifully spun elegance. Cristina García offers us a profoundly moving insight into the difficult questions of identity which haunt both individuals and nations.”

— Caryl Phillips

“This is truly generous writing: García animates the worlds of naturalists and electricians and cosmeticians alike with subtley, grace, and wild unpredictability. Her two sisters are particularly enthralling—at once bigger-than-life, they speak piercingly to the Cuban moment even as they pull the reader, running, from the beginning of the book to the end.”

— Gish Jen

“If her accomplished first novel,
Dreaming in Cuban
, marked García as a writer to watch, this compelling and resonant story of thwarted relationships, intense, unslaked desires, and family secrets surely confirms her promise.… The sinuous and absorbing plot provides recurrent bursts of surprise delivered with deceptive simplicity.… García gives us beautifully nuanced portraits of a riven people, separated by more than an ocean.… [Her] lushly vibrant prose evokes a tropical atmosphere and a seething sexuality, both steamily intensified by santero rituals and mystical phenomena.”

—
Publishers Weekly
(starred and boxed review)

“Highly recommended … Richly imagined … García shapes her material beautifully, keeping the reader with her until the end.”

—
Library Journal
(starred review)

“Beautifully written … Her prose is lush and rhythmic, so that the novel has an almost feverish air.”

—
Booklist