*The
images in this specific piece are granted copyright privilege by: Public
Domain, CCSAL, GNU Free Documentation Licenses, Fair Use Under The United
States Copyright Law, or given copyright privilege by the copyright holder
which is identified beneath the individual photo.
**Some of
the links will have to be copied and then posted in your search engine in order
to pull up properly
***The CRC Blog welcomes submissions from published and unpublished fiction genre writers for INSIDE THE EMOTION OF FICTION. Contact CRC Blog via email at caccoop@aol.com or personal Facebook messaging at https://www.facebook.com/car.cooper.7
*Pablo Medina’s THE CUBAN
COMEDY is #117 in the never-ending series called INSIDE THE EMOTION OF FICTION where the Chris Rice Cooper Blog (CRC) focuses on one specific excerpt from
a fiction genre and how that fiction writer wrote that specific excerpt. All INSIDE
THE EMOTION OF FICTION links are at the end of this piece.
Name of fiction work?
And were there other names you considered that you would like to share with us?
The Cuban
Comedy: A Novel. Yes, the
novel had other names but I forget most of them. The one that I worked with as
I was writing was Elena's World, but
I couldn't have titled it that. For one thing, it was too static.
Fiction genre? Ex science fiction, short story, fantasy
novella, romance, drama, crime, plays, flash fiction, historical, comedy, movie
script, screenplay, etc. And how many
pages long? The closest I can come to is literary satire, though it is in the
end a very serious book about the abuses of power and the way poets confront
those abuses. It clocks in at a modest 205 pages.
Has this been published?
And it is totally fine if the answer is no.
If yes, what publisher and what publication date? The book is
printed. I have copies and it looks beautiful. The publication date is July 9,
2019. Unnamed Press (https://www.unnamedpress.com/) is the publisher. They took care of
this book as well as you can expect. This press is going places and I am glad
they published The Human Comedy.
What is the date you
began writing this piece of fiction and the date when you completely finished
the piece of fiction?
I began writing this novel in 2004, at the
Rockefeller Foundation's Study Center in Bellagio, Italy. I continued writing
in New York and subsequently in Las Vegas. Then I ran into a roadblock that
made me stop cold and led me to work on other projects. I felt I had the wrong
perspective, the focus was blurred, the writing wasn't moving the way I wanted.
I then went back to it in 2014 while I was living in Boston and completed it early in 2018 in southern
Vermont, where I now live.
What were your writing
habits while writing this work- did you drink something as you wrote, listen to
music, write in pen and paper, directly on laptop; specific time of day? I drink
water while I work, sometimes a little tea. I like to write in the mornings
while my mind is fresh and the heart full of expectation. I work every day,
starting usually between 8:30 and 9:00 and work until one, in time for lunch. I
spend a couple of hours in the afternoon rereading what I wrote, but by then my
creative juices have dried up. Novels I usually compose directly on the
computer, usually in English. About half of this work was written in Spanish
and then translated. Spanish keeps me honest. English keeps me straight.
What is the summary of
this specific fiction work? In an isolated village known mostly
for the hallucinatory firewater produced there, Elena is the distiller's
daughter, helping her father keep up with growing demand. It is the end of the
Cuban Revolution, and the country is on the cusp of great change, but in Piedra
Negra the only thing that matters to wounded soldiers returning home is the
town's infamous moonshine. Elena, however, isn't much interested in the family
business, or family for that matter. She is a Poet, and when she wins a national
poetry contest, she doesn't hesitate to abandon Piedra Negra for the capital.
In Havana, an entirely new way of life, post-revolution, is
writing itself out like a surreal poem. Navigating black markets, communist
censorship, and a love affair with a flamboyant poet, Elena embraces the city,
and her new position as an official poet of Cuba until she finds herself on the
wrong side of the regime. Full of outlandish humor and insights into a
contradictory and Kafkaesque world, the novel brings to life a transitional
Cuba in 1960.
What is the
Cuban Revolution?
Please include just one
excerpt and include page numbers as reference.
This one excerpt can be as short or as long as you prefer. (Pages 8 -
10) Elena’s
world was divided into four parts. To the east were the mountains where a
revolutionary war was raging. To the south spread a salt-encrusted marsh, thick
with the refuse of the past. To the west under an arrogant sun that never set
was the world of the capital, the urban splendor of art and poetry and
politics. To the north, beyond the hills and plains, was the desert of the sea,
and a day’s boat ride away, the American dreamscape of concrete and hope.
When Elena looked to the east, she saw
columns of black smoke and flashes of multi-colored lights, thunderous and
beautiful. Toward those lights the young men of the town went on horseback, by
bicycle, and on foot. Once, early in the morning, she’d seen a tall, lanky boy
on a unicycle with an old hunting rifle slung across his shoulder. On another
occasion she watched a group of schoolboys stepping briskly along, singing
revolutionary anthems. Most, however, passed by the truckload. They went to
prove their valor before bullets and bombs, join the ruckus, feed the fires of
rebellion. Those who returned came back without legs or arms. Many were missing
an eye or blinded altogether or horribly disfigured or riddled with shrapnel
scars or bearing deep psychic wounds that never healed. A large number were
never heard from again. That’s what happened to her two brothers, Eugenio and
Fermín, who went to fight in the revolt with great enthusiasm, screaming out,
¡Viva fulano! and ¡Viva mengano!, carrying rusted weapons they’d found behind
sacks of potatoes in the larder of the ancestral family home. The town soon
emptied of able young men, and the only ones to be seen on the streets were the
disabled, the cross-eyed, the transvestites, the dim-witted, and the cowards,
who made believe they were dim-witted so no one would blame them for not
fighting.
Twelve months after her two brothers
marched off, a man came to the house dressed in a light beige suit. He had a
funerary look in his eyes and a stern, thin mustache across his upper lip and
brought with him two small boxes containing the remains of the two brothers. He
expressed his condolences to the family and added that Eugenio and Fermín had
died heroically in service of the cause. Elena’s mother Cándida crossed
herself; Elena’s father Fermín José stared at the man and asked how, and the
man repeated, Heroically, in service of the cause. What cause? Fermín José
asked and the man answered, The fight against oppression. Oppression, Fermín
José said. They’d never felt oppressed except by the summer heat and the autumn
rains. The man stayed for coffee and then went away. Cándida murmured a prayer
and Fermín José returned to the back of the house where the sun never shined
and where, when he wasn’t at work distilling the milky firewater that he sold
at five pesos a bottle to the broken veterans, he played a chess game with
himself that had started the day his two sons went off to war.
At the age of seventeen, soon after the
man’s departure, Elena took to writing verses. They were simple poems at first,
filled with flowers and trees and Pipo the Pig and Cantaclaro the Rooster and a
benevolent God and ecstatic angels, all the things her mother loved and Elena
thought she loved as well. Then in one poem Elena recited to her mother, a cat
devoured a frog, and in another a god forced his disciples to eat his son’s
flesh and drink his blood. Cándida went to Fermín José and said, The plague of
death has come down from the mountains and infected our daughter. Without
looking up from the complex geometries of the chess game, Fermín José
responded, That girl was been infected with something more terminal than death.
“And what is that?” Cándida asked.
“Poetry,” Fermín José said, moving a black
rook and checking himself.
Why is this excerpt so
emotional for you as a writer to write?
And can you describe your own emotional experience of writing this
specific excerpt? Emotion must always be kept in check when writing a novel. You
don't want to slog through the bog of sentimentality. Once I developed the
character of Elena, I began to care for her and gave her as fair a chance to
live her life as God himself would, and God feels no emotion though religious
zealots would try to convince you otherwise.
Were there any deletions
from this excerpt that you can share with us? And can you please include a
photo of your marked up rough drafts of this excerpt. I don't
remember the deletions, and in any case I would never reveal them even if I was
tortured. I destroy my marked up drafts. There is little of value in them.
Other works you have
published? The Kingdom of this World by
Alejo Carpentier (translation from
the Spanish). New York, NY: Farrar Straus & Giroux, November 2017.
Soledades (poems in Spanish). Madrid, Spain:
Editorial Betania, 2017.
The Island
Kingdom (poems).
New York, NY: Hanging Loose Press, May 2015.
The Weight
of the Island: Selected Poems of Virgilio Piñera (translations from the Spanish).
New Orleans, LA: Diálogos, Lavender Ink, 2014.
Calle
Habana (poems and
photographs, with Carlos Ordoñez). Stroud, England: PhotoStroud, March 2013.
Cubop City
Blues (novel).
New York, NY: Grove/Atlantic, Inc., June 2012.
The Man Who
Wrote on Water (poems). Brooklyn, NY: Hanging Loose, 2011
Arabic
Edition of The Floating Island. Amman,
Jordan: Dar Azmina, Fall 2008.
Poet in New
York/Poeta en Nueva York (translation, with Mark Statman).
New York, NY: Grove/Atlantic, Inc., January 2008.
El forjador
de puros. (Spanish
edition of The Cigar Roller) México City: Patria Cultural, December
2005.
The Cigar
Roller. New York, NY: Grove Press/Atlantic
Monthly, Inc., March 2005. (Paperback,
2006).
Points of
Balance/Puntos de apoyo. New York, NY: Four
Way Books, March 2005.
Puntos de apoyo. Madrid: Editorial Betania, April 2002.
The Return
of Felix Nogara. New York, NY:
Persea Books, September 2000.
(Paperback, 2002).
The
Floating Island. Buffalo, NY: White Pine Press, 1999.
Les
lumières de Felicia (French
edition of The Marks of Birth). Paris, France: Nils éditions, 1998.
Das
Schattenparadies (German edition of The
Marks of Birth). Berlin,
Germany: Rutten & Loening,
1995. (Paperback edition in 1996.)
The Marks
of Birth. New York, NY: Farrar,
Straus & Giroux, 1994. (Paperback,
Persea Books, August 2003).
Arching
into the Afterlife. Tempe, Arizona: Bilingual Review/Press,
Arizona State University, 1991.
Exiled
Memories: A Cuban Childhood. Austin, Texas: The University of
Texas Press, 1990. (Revised paperback
edition, Persea Books, 2002).
Everyone
Will Have to Listen: The Poetry of Tania Díaz Castro.
Translator, with Carolina Hospital.
Princeton, New Jersey: Linden Lane Press, 1990.
Pork Rind
and Cuban Songs. Washington, D.C.:
Nuclassics and Science, 1975.
Anything you would like
to add? Thank you for this opportunity. It's all about the music.
Pablo
Medina is the author of nineteen books, among them the poetry collections Soledades, The Island Kingdom, The Man Who Wrote on
Water, and Calle Habana; the novels The Cuban Comedy, Cubop City Blues,
The Cigar Roller, The
Return of Felix Nogara, and The Marks of Birth; and the memoir Exiled
Memories: A Cuban Childhood. In 2015 he published a collection of
translations from the Spanish of Virgilio Piñera titled The Weight of the Island,
and in 2008 he translated (with Mark Statman) García Lorca's Poet
in New York. His English version of Alejo Carpentier's seminal novel The
Kingdom of This World was published to critical acclaim in 2017.
Medina’s work has appeared in various
languages and in magazines and periodicals throughout the world. Winner of
many awards, including fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, the National
Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and others, Medina is professor emeritus from Emerson
College and teaches at the Warren Wilson MFA for Writers.
INSIDE THE EMOTION OF
FICTION links
001 11 15 2018 Nathaniel
Kaine’s
Thriller Novel
John
Hunter – The Veteran
002 11 18 2018 Ed
Protzzel’s
Futuristic/Mystery/Thriller
The
Antiquities Dealer
003 11 23 2018 Janice
Seagraves’s
Science
Fiction Romance
Exodus
Arcon
004 11 29 2018
Christian Fennell’s
Literary
Fiction Novel
The Fiddler
in the Night
005 12 02 2018 Jessica
Mathews’s
Adult
Paranormal Romance
Death
Adjacent
006 12 04 2018 Robin Jansen’s
Literary
Fiction Novel
Ruby the
Indomitable
007 12 12 2018 Adair Valerez’s
Literary
Fiction Novel
Scrim
008 12 17 218
Kit Frazier’s
Mystery Novel
Dead Copy
009 12 21 2019 Robert Craven’s
Noir/Spy Novel
The Road
of a Thousand Tigers
010 01 13 2019 Kristine Goodfellow’s
Contemporary
Romantic Fiction
The Other
Twin
011 01 17 2019 Nancy J Cohen’s
Cozy Mystery
Trimmed To
Death
012 01 20 2019 Charles Salzberg’s
Crime Novel
Second
Story Man
013 01 23 2019 Alexis Fancher’s
Flash Fiction
His Full
Attention
014 01 27 2019 Brian L Tucker’s
Young Adult/Historical
POKEWEED: AN ILLUSTRATED NOVELLA
015 01 31 2019 Robin Tidwell’s
Dystopian
Reduced
016 02 07 2019 J.D. Trafford’s
Legal
Fiction/Mystery
Little Boy
Lost
017 02 08 2019 Paula Shene’s
Young Adult
ScieFi/Fantasy/Romance/Adventure
My Quest
Begins
018 02 13 2019 Talia Carner’s
Mainstream
Fiction/ Suspense/ Historical
Hotel
Moscow
019 02 15 2019 Rick Robinson’s
Multidimensional
Fiction
Alligator
Alley
020 02 21 2019 LaVerne Thompson’s
Urban Fantasy
The Soul
Collectors
021 02 27 2019 Marlon L Fick’s
Post-Colonialist
Novel
The
Nowhere Man
022 03 02 2019 Carol Johnson’s
Mainstream
Novel
Silk And
Ashes
023 03 06 2019 Samuel Snoek-Brown’s
Short Story
Collection
There Is
No Other Way to Worship Them
024 03 08 2019 Marlin Barton’s
Short Story
Collection
Pasture
Art
025 03 18 2019 Laura Hunter’s
Historical
Fiction
Beloved
Mother
026 03 21 2019 Maggie Rivers’s
Romance
Magical
Mistletoe
027 03 25 2019 Faith
Gibson’s
Paranormal
Romance
Rafael
028 03 27 2019 Valerie Nieman’s
Tall Tale
To The
Bones
029 04 04 2019 Betty Bolte’s
Paranormal
Romance
Veiled
Visions of Love
030 04 05 2019 Marianne
Maili’s
Tragicomedy
Lucy, go
see
031 04 10 2019 Gregory Erich Phillips’s
Mainstream
Fiction
The Exile
032 04 15 2019 Jason Ament’s
Speculative
Fiction
Rabid Dogs
033 04 24 2019 Stephen P. Keirnan’s
Historical
Novel
The
Baker’s Secret
034 05 01 2019 George Kramer’s
Fantasy
Arcadis:
Prophecy Book
035 05 05 2019 Erika Sams’s
Adventure/Fantasy/Romance
Rose of Dance
036 05 07 2019 Mark Wisniewski’s
Literary
Fiction
Watch Me
Go
037 05 08 2019 Marci Baun’s
Science
Fiction/Horror
The
Whispering House
038 05 10 2019 Suzanne M. Wolfe’s
Historical
Fiction
Murder By
Any Name
039 05 12 2019 Edward DeVito’s
Historical/Fantasy
The
Woodstock Paradox
040 05 14 2019 Gytha Lodge’s
Literary/Crime
She Lies
In Wait
041 05 16 2019 Kari Bovee’s
Historical
Fiction/Mystery
Peccadillo
At The Palace: An Annie Oakley Mystery
042 05 20 2019 Annie Seaton’s
Time Travel
Romance
Follow Me
043 05 22 2019 Paula Rose Michelson’s
Inspirational
Christian Romance
Rosa &
Miguel – Love’s Legacy: Prequel to The Naomi
Chronicles
044 05 24 2019 Gracie C McKeever’s
BDMS/Interracial
Romance
On The
Edge
045 06 03 2019 Micheal Maxwell’s
Mystery
The Soul
of Cole
046 06 04 2019 Jeanne Mackin’s
Historical
The Last
Collection: A Novel of Elsa Schiaparelli
and
Coco
Chanel
047 06 07 2019 Philip Shirley’s
Suspense/Thriller
The
Graceland Conspiracy
048 06 08 2019 Bonnie Kistler’s
Domestic
Suspense
The House
on Fire
049 06 13 2019 Barbara Taylor Sissel’s
Domestic
Suspense/Family Drama
Tell No
One
050 06 18 2019 Charles Salzberg’s
Short Story/
Crime Fiction
“No Good Deed” from Down to the River
051 06 19 2019 Rita Dragonette’s
Historical
Fiction
The
Fourteenth of September
052 06 20 2019 Nona
Caspers’s
Literary
Novel/Collage
The Fifth
Woman
053 06 26 2019 Jeri Westerson’s
Paranormal
Romance
Shadows in
the Mist
054 06 28 2019 Brian Moreland’s
Horror
The
Devil’s Woods
055 06 29 2019
Epic Fantasy
Wings
Unseen
056 07 02 2019 Randee Green’s
Mystery Novel
Criminal
Misdeeds
057 07 03 2019 Saralyn Ricahrd’s
Mystery Novel
Murder In
The One Percent
#058 07 04 2019 Hannah Mary McKinnon’s
Domestic Suspense
Her Secret
Son
#059 07 05 2019 Sonia Saikaley’s
Contemporary
Women’s Literature
The
Allspice Bath
#060 07 09 2019 Olivia Gaines’s
Romance
Suspense Serial
Blind Luck
#061 07 11 2019 Anne Raeff’s
Literary
Fiction
Winter
Kept Us Warm
#062 07 12 2918 Vic Sizemore’s
Literary
Fiction-Short Stories
I Love You
I’m Leaving
#063 07 13 2019 Deborah Riley Magnus’s
Dark
Paranormal Urban Fantasy
THE ORPHANS
BOOK ONE: THE LOST RACE
TRILOGY
#064 07 14 2019 Elizabeth Bell’s
Historical
Fiction
NECESSARY
SINS
#065 07 15 2019 Lori Baker Martin’s
Literary Novel
BITTER
WATER
#066 08 01 2019 Sabine Chennault’s
Historical
Novel
THE
CORPSMAN’S WIFE
#067 08 02 2019 Margaret Porter’s
Historical Biographical
Fiction
BEAUTIFUL
INVENTION: A NOVEL OF HEDY LAMARR
#068 08 04 2019 Hank Phillippi Ryan’s
Suspense
THE MURDER
LIST
069 08 08 2019 Diana Y. Paul’s
Literary
Mainstream Fiction
THINGS
UNSAID
070 08 10 2019 Phyllis H. Moore’s
Women’s
Historical Fiction
BIRDIE
& JUDE
071 08 11 2019 Sara Dahmen’s
Historical
Fiction
TINSMITH 1865
072 08 19 2019 Carolyn
Breckinridge’s
Short Story
Collection
KALIEDESCOPE
& OTHER STORIES
073 08 21 2019 Alison Ragsdale’s
Emotional Women’s
Fiction
THE ART OF
REMEMBERING
074 08 22 2019 Lee
Matthew Goldberg’s
Suspense
Thriller
THE DESIRE
CARD
075 08 23 2019 Jonathan Brown’s
Mystery/Amateur
P.I.
THE BIG
CRESCENDO
076 09 02 2019 Chera Hammons Miller’s
Literary
Fiction w/ suspense, concern with animals & land management
Monarchs
of the Northeast Kingdom
077 09 09 019 Joe William Taylor’s
Literary
Mystery
The Theoretics of Love
078 09 15 2019 Linda Hughes’s
Romantic Suspense
Secret of the Island
079 09 19 2019 Max Elliot Anderson’s
Middle Grade Adventure/Mystery
Snake Island
080 09 22 2019 Danny Adams’s
Science Fiction
Dayworld: A Hole In Wednesday
081 09 24 2019 Arianna Dagnino’s
Social/Historical/Adventure
The Afrikaner
082 09 29 2019 Lawrence Verigin’s
Thriller/Suspense
Seed of Control
083 10 05 2019 Emma Khoury’s
Fantasy
The Sword And Shield
#084 10 07 2019 Steve McManus’s
Mystery/Suspense/Thriller
SEVEN DEVILS
#085 10 08 2019 Sheila Lowe’s
Mystery/Psychological/Suspense
with Scientific Bent
PROOF OF LIVE
#086 10 10 2019 Jess Neal Woods’s
Historical Fiction
THE PROCESS OF FRAYING
#087 10 11 2019 Karen Odden’s
Historical
Suspense
A TRACE OF DECEIT
#88 10 14 2019 Kate Maruyama’s
Love, Loss
& Supernatural
“HARROWGATE”
#89 10 17 2019 Sherry Harris’s
Mystery
“LET’S FAKE A
DEAL”
#90 10 18 2019 Linda Mooney’s
Science
Fiction Apocalyptic/ Post Apocalyptic
“THE TRUNK”
#91 10 19 2019 Jayne Martin’s
Flash Fiction Short Story Collection
“TENDER CUTS”
#92 10 22 2019 Janice Cole Hopkins’s
Inspirational
Romance
“IT ALL STARTED AT THE MASQUERADE”
#93 10 29 2019 Kristi Petersen Schoonover’s
Short Story Collection
“THE SHADOWS
BEHIND”
#94 11 01 2019 David Henry Sterry’s
Fiction:
Sexual Violence
“THE TENDERLOIN WARS”
#95
11 03 2019 Jay Requard’s
Dark Fantasy/Horror
“DEATH
& DUST: THE PALE SAND ADVENTURES”
#96
11 04 2019 Caroline Leavitt’s
Fiction
“WITH
OR WITHOUT YOU”
#97 11 06 2019 Kelsey Clifton’s
Science
Fiction
“A DAY OUT OF TIME”
#098 11 13 2019 John F Allen’s
Urban Fantasy
Tale
“The God
Killers’
https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2019/11/98-inside-emotion-of-fiction-god.html
https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2019/11/98-inside-emotion-of-fiction-god.html
#99 11 16 2019 Damian McNicholl’s
Historical
Novel
“The Moment of Truth”
#100 11 19 2019 Stacia Levy’s
Mystery/Suspense
Novel
“Girl Crush”
#101 11 24 2019 Charlotte Morgan’s
Fiction Novel
“Protecting Elvis”
#102 11 26 2019 T. L. Moore’s
Children’s
Christian Fiction
“Ed On My Shoulder:
Maria & The Candy Trail”
#103
11 27 2019 Jeanne McWilliams Blasberg’s
Coming of Age Literary Novel
The Nine
#104 11 29 2019 Charlotte Blackwell’s
Adult
Paranormal
“MYSTIC EMBRACE”
#105 12 07 2019 Mike Burrell’s
Satire Novel
“THE LAND OF GRACE”
#106 12 09 2019 Phil McCarron’s
Screenplay
“Escapement”
#107 12 11 2019 Wendy H. Jones’s
Crime
Fiction/Police Procedural Novel
“KILLER’S COUNTDOWN”
#108 12 13 2019 Sandra Arnold’s
Historical
Literary Fiction
“The Ash, the Well and the Blue Bell”
#109 12 16 2019 Amalia Carosella’s
Historical/Contemporary/Duel
Timeline/ Women’s
Fiction
“DAUGHTER OF A THOUSAND YEARS”
#110 12 19 2019 Laura Bickle’s
Weird
Western/Contemporary Fantasy
“DARK ALCHEMY”
#111 12 27 2019 Brian Pinkerton’s
Science
Fiction Thriller
“THE GEMINI EXPERIMENT”
#112 12 28 2019 Sandra de
Helen’s
Lesbian
Thriller
“TILL DARKNESS COMES”
#113 12 29 2019 Jo Wilde’s
Vampire
Thriller
“THE CROSSING”
#114 12 30 2019 Sam Richard’s
Short Story
Collection of Weird and Transgressive
Horror
“To Wallow In Ash and Sorrows”
#115 12 31 2019 Duncan B Barlow’s
Literary
Fiction Novel
“A DOG BETWEEN US”
#116 01 02 2020 Allison Landa’s
Young Adult
Novel
“BAD HAIR”
#117 01 03 2020 Pablo Medina’s
Literary
Satire Novel
“THE CUBAN COMEDY”
