Friday, January 3, 2020

#117 Inside the Emotion of Fiction "THE CUBAN COMEDY" by Pablo Medina



*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***The CRC Blog welcomes submissions from published and unpublished fiction genre writers for INSIDE THE EMOTION OF FICTION.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


#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”