White Rose--Una Rosa Blanca

The latest effort from novelist (A Cup of Tea) and screenwriter Ephron is based on the true story of Evangelina Cisneros, who escaped imprisonment in Cuba with the aid of American journalist Charles Duval (aka Karl Decker) during the 1890s, just before the Spanish-American War. The determined, pretty 19-year-old chose to accompany her father to the Isle of Pines after he was arrested by the Spanish government on political charges. When her father escaped, Evangelina was left to face 20 years in Ceuta, an African penal colony no prisoner had ever survived. William Randolph Hearst sent Decker, his top reporter, to rescue Evangelina; like a modern heroine, she rescued him right back, helping him to make it safely off the island and following him to the U.S., where she met with President McKinley. The attraction between Karl and Evangelina may or may not have roots in fact, but as Ephron tells it, Karl gives scant consideration to his wife and child at home in Washington, D.C. This is an intriguing story and an important one, with special appeal for political and feminist audiences, but Ephron fails to bring it fully to life. Her decision to rely on Evangelina's own words for some of the dialogue ensures the proper historic tone and surely posed an interesting challenge for the writer, but the results are sometimes stilted, though Ephron's own prose is supple. The novel is fleshed out with a good deal of Cuban history and a look at early American cultural imperialism. But it is developed in too sketchy a fashion to involve the reader's emotions; this is all the more disappointing since the subject matter is so promising. (Sept.) FYI: Ephron is writing the screenplay and will be executive producer for a film based on this book that has been optioned by Warner Brothers.