Lisa Wixon - Dirty Blonde and Half-Cuban

Before I lived in Cuba, I read everything I could about the island, and there are some books of extraordinary analysis on the political issues, some written by exiles and others by Americans. When reading I kept saying, “Yeah, but what about the people? What do they think? What is their life like?”

And the truth is, it’s very sad. They laugh and hold their heads up and make jokes about their plight, but the humiliations suffered are tremendous. Imagine having to send your beloved wife off to sleep with a Canadian sex tourist? And if she doesn’t, the medicine their daughter needs cannot be afforded?

It’s impossible not to have a great deal of empathy for the Cubans. It’s time their story is told.

1. Describe the jineteras. What is the difference between them and prostitutes? What is the ancient Greek precedent for the jineteras? How do they reconcile professional lives as doctors and engineers with romantic swindling? How does Wixon portray their attitude?

2. At the beginning of the novel, Alysia’s fate is sealed when—while sitting at a café—a stranger approaches from behind and touches her bare shoulder. At what other times does a touch from the physical or metaphysical world signal a shift in the story?

3. Why do you think Wixon gave the main character an ethnically ambiguous first name? Is she making a larger point about identity?

4. Wixon plays with the theme of love and family versus materialism and comforts. Do those of us in wealthy countries also have to adjust our priorities between family and finances? If Alysia’s mother had stayed in Cuba, how would her life have turned out?

5. What role does Modesta play in the story? What is it about relationships between women, and what women want from those relationships, that makes a creature like Modesta so unnerving?

6. Alysia’s childhood as a diplomat’s daughter taught her to use and trust maps. What role do maps play in the story? How does she break away from the logic of them to embrace her future?

7. How does Alysia reconcile her attraction to Rafael knowing he must sleep with foreign women in order to care for his family? Does Rafael’s jineteandomake it impossible for him to experience authentic romance? Would you be involved in this kind of relationship?

8. Wixon describes the economic and political troubles in Cuba, but is careful to not judge either the U.S. or the Cuban government for their policies. As the reader, what is your belief as to why the economic and political situation is so problematic? According to Wixon, how do Cubans view their situation?

9. What is sex tourism? Why do you think it’s become a worldwide epidemic? What are the moral complexities of this phenomenon? Is it different for sellers than for buyers?

10. If you were Alysia, or a resident of modern Cuba, and given the complex economic situation, would you become a jineteraor jinetero? Why or why not?

Lisa Wixon recommends the best books, music, and films that embrace Cuban Culture

STORIES

Our Man in Havana

By Graham Greene

I Gave You All I Had: A Novel

By Zoé Valdés

Dirty Havana Trilogy: A Novel in Stories

By Pedro Juan Gutiérrez

Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy

By Carlos Eire

GUIDES

Moon Handbooks Cuba

By Christopher P. Baker

Havana: History and Architecture of a Romantic City

By María Luisa Lobo Montalvo

MUSIC

Ya No Hace Falta

Bamboleo

Chapeando

Los Van Van

Timba—The New Generation of Latin Music

César “Pupy” Pedroso y Los Que Son, Son

Para Bailar Casino…

Adalberto Alvarez y Su Son

A lo Cubano

Orishas

Tremendo Delirio

David Calzado y La Charanga Habanera

FILMS

I Am Cuba/Soy Cuba

Director: Mikhail Kalatozov

Honey for Oshún/Miel para Oshún

Director: Humberto Solás

Suite Havana/Suite Habana

Director: Fernando Pérez

Strawberry & Chocolate/Fresa y Chocolate

Directors: Juan Carlos Tabío and Tomás Gutiérrez Alea

Memories of Underdevelopment/Memorias del Subdesarrollo

Director: Tomás Gutiérrez Alea

LISA WIXON has lived in Europe and Latin America and traveled to more than forty countries. She currently makes her home in New York City. Dirty Blonde and Half-Cubanis her first novel.

WWW.LISAWIXON.COM

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“Lisa Wixon has crafted an unflinching debut novel that, if it were a woman, might lean against a street post in old Havana, stare you boldly in the eye, and dare you to say something. By turns tender and terse, Dirty Blonde and Half-Cubantakes the reader on a young woman’s dizzying, sometimes shocking journey to find her Cuban roots, and succeeds in creating a refreshingly cynical, unpatronizing window into life in modern Cuba. Wixon deserves a bodyguard, and a great big ‘You go, girl.’”

—Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, author of The Dirty Girls Social Club

“…a compelling portrait of a woman coming to embrace her inner hybrid.”

— Washington Post

“Ready to be discovered and devoured…A fascinating look at the seamier side of Havana.”

— Chicago Tribune

“The novel is…frank about the practice of bartering sex for money. Most interesting are Wixon’s observations about identity, particularly what it is like for young Cuban-Americans returning to the island. [H]er novel is an admirably realistic though depressing portrait of how many Cubans are forced to rely on outsiders for survival.”

— Miami Herald

“…scandalously entertaining…”

—NPR’s Fresh Air

“Wixon renders Alysia’s yearning for José Antonio and her attraction to Cuba palpable while vividly capturing Havana’s rhythms and the power imbalance between struggling native women and North American sexual tourists….”

— Publishers Weekly

“Part survival story, part eye-opening morality tale, this novel hits hardest in its depiction of proud women forced to prostitute themselves just to live.”

— Booklist

“[A] revelatory portrait of contemporary Cuba’s demimonde society…intriguing.”

— Kirkus Reviews

“Alysia’s story is spellbinding….[Wixon] delivers a very believable, bittersweet ending doing justice to the characters she tended throughout the novel.”

—Bookslut.com

“It’s a fascinating, sometimes harrowing but often humorous look at modern Cuba, where she must make some difficult choices in order to survive and continue the search for her father.”

— Reno Gazette-Journal

“…an eye-opening portrait of contemporary Havana…This is a bracing tale—told with humor and welcome frankness, both political and sexual…of how one half-Cuban woman will stop at nothing to be whole.”

— Los Angeles Times

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

DIRTY BLONDE AND HALF-CUBAN. Copyright © 2005 by Lisa Wixon. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.