Ana’s grandson Luis proves to be a great tour guide for Marisol, and he shows her around Havana and the surrounding areas.īack in 1958, Elisa is surrounded by the elaborate atmosphere that comes with being a Perez. Determined to put the pieces together to find the proper place to spread Elisa’s ashes, Marisol learns as much as she can about the island. After staying with Ana, Marisol discovers letters and clues into her grandmother’s young life that she was never aware of before. Marisol finds safe lodging with an old friend of Elisa’s, Ana Rodriguez.

She is smuggling her ashes into Havana, and is wary of the government and the ease with which she can be arrested as an American in Cuba. As Elisa’s granddaughter, she is on a mission to learn as much as her grandmother’s childhood home as possible, as well as to decide where to lay Elisa to rest. Marisol, 60 years later, following Elisa passing away, starts the novel on a plane from the U.S. They do not know when they will be able to return. Her sisters, Isabel, Beatriz, and Maria stand alongside her and their parents, Emilio and Mrs. Elisa is 19, living in the Miramar district of Havana with her family, and Marisol is in her thirties, visiting Cuba from Miami, returning her grandmothers ashes to her home.Įlisa begins the novel waiting in the airport in Havana with her family, forced into exile by the country’s new political regime. Both of these characters are in Cuba, and both are first-person narrators.

Berkley, 2018.Ĭleeton’s novel is divided into 31 chapters, each from the perspective of either Elisa Perez in the late 1950s or her future granddaughter, Marisol Ferrera in 2017. The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Cleeton, Chanel.

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