Loving Che

A missing mother, a mysterious parcel of old letters, and a young woman in search of her roots reveal an astonishing story of a woman's affair with Che Guevara and an intimate portrait of revolutionary Cuba. In her brilliant debut novel, Ana Menendez uses her gift for storytelling to paint a sweet but sad, hopeful but despairing, serene and sometimes terror-filled portrait of Cuba in the time of revolution, and Cubans in exile then and now. The memories of an elderly woman provide a glimpse into the private life of a beloved public figure, the world's most charismatic rebel, Ernesto "Che" Guevara. The story begins quietly, in the narrative voice of a young Cuban woman who lives in contemporary Miami. Raised by her grandfather, a Cuban exile, she knows only that he fled turbulent times in Havana in the 1960s, bringing her to Miami when she was hardly more than a baby. These bare facts plus a few lines from a poem by Pablo Neruda are her only key to her mother, her father, her history, and the history of her country. When a package arrives one day, addressed to her, the crumbling letters and fragile photos it contains allow her to piece together the story of her mother, a youthful affair, and the child she bore by a handsome rebel.