Vanishing Maps

Garcia revisits characters from Dreaming in Cuban for this rich if uneven story of the del Pino family. It’s 1999 and matriarch Celia del Pino, 90, remains one of the family’s lone holdouts still residing in Havana. She’s enamored with Gustavo, a married Spaniard with whom she shared a passionate night in 1934. Meanwhile, her grandson, Ivanito Villaverde, a translator and drag performer living in Berlin, is visited by apparitions of his dead mother, Felicia. One granddaughter, Irina del Pino, runs a brassiere factory in Moscow, while another, Pilar Puente, tries to balance single parenthood with her fledgling career as an artist in Los Angeles. Lourdes, Celia’s surviving daughter and Pilar’s mother, a baker in Miami, has become obsessed with the story of Eliseo González, a boy found clinging to life in the straits of Florida after his mother drowned as they fled Cuba. Celia pines for Gustavo and considers a trip to Granada to rekindle their passion. Worlds collide in Berlin: Pilar, with her six-year-old in tow, pays a surprise visit to Ivanito after a stormy encounter with Lourdes, while Irina travels there on business and meets a long-lost relative. Garcia piles on a bit too much backstory in the first half, though the narrative becomes much more intriguing once the family members reunite. Though a slow burn, this will appeal to readers of Cuban diasporic stories. Agent: Ellen Levine, Trident Media. (June)