The Library Show

Valley of Tears Saturday, August 11, 2018 - Saturday, December 29, 2018

On the probability of disillusion and other disenchantments, by Oliver Sanchez

 

Kirkus review

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/angela-sanchez-tischler/los-desenganos/
Nowhere in the book it says that we met in Florida, but I am not complaining: it is a good review.

Los Desengaños is mentioned in the best seller book The Sugar King  of Havana, The Rise and Fall of Julio Lobo, Cuba's Last Tycoon, by John Paul Rathbone.
On page 107 . . . Before that, one of my cousins remembers playing at a ruined mill in Camaguey that was built in the 1850s but never operated. It was called El Desengaño, the Disappointment--a fitting Cuban epitaph.

Peace on Earth!

My son Jeff took this photo while looking in vain for any sign of Los Desengaños. Why does it make me think of a Nativity Scene?

Around the Camaguey of my youth the best loved sound was the clack-clack of the tranvia. The two intersecting routes took us anywhere we wanted to go.

New Year's Day 1956

Get them while they are hot!
Are books that perishable, like muffins or fresh fish?
Every book presentation begins with "A New book by . . . the Latest from . . ."
Los Desengaños is now three years old, no longer a new book, not yet a classic but what is it? One thing we can say about it is that it is still the Latest from this writer.
Here is one of the missing illustrations I keep hearing about. A wedding photo to be inserted following page 126 in the printed book.

Lechon asado, 2 August 1938

Dia de los Angeles gathering at Los Desengaños.
My mother, Angela Agramonte, is at the extreme left. Next to her and under the large bows are Angelita (that's me) with my hand on my face and Lucy in a not very lady-like pose; then Oli and visiting cousins from Nuevitas, Camaguey and Habana. My father is in the back behind the pole with the pig. The man with the hat just spent the whole morning turning that pole. 

Swan Song Book

A Swan Song Book

The one story

I must write

Because

No one else can

Publishing houses are only interested in books written by thirty years olds who can produce a new title every other year. The name of the author is what sells the book and often appears in larger font on the cover than the book title. Readers shop by authors; they look for a name whose work they have discovered already. Alternately, they pick up a book written by someone whose name is familiar: a movie star, politician, serial killer . . . anything, just so the name has been in print before. “How To” books from non-celebrities may be considered, but that is about all.
That leaves out all those bits of history known as Memoirs. Put together they paint the story, not just of a person or a family, but of an era. And in the case of my one book, Los Desengaños, it describes the end of a way of life and, from a particular point of view, the end of a country.
Since there was no point for an eighty year old unknown like me to even try to approach a publisher or an agent, I did what thousands of other “writers” are doing: I paid to have my book printed. To register my book and acquire an ISBN number from Bowker I had to name a publisher and instead of using my name I invented a publishing company. In a moment, Swan Song Books came into existence.

  

Camagüey Calling

"I fail to see beauty in anything made by man."

"What happened in Cuba in the 1950’s was so large and complicated that one single historian cannot grasp all the nuances. Many have told the story from many different angles and with various degrees of impartiality and scholarship. One point of view that has mostly been missing is that of ordinary Cuban citizens, those of us who were neither politicians nor revolutionaries. There were many of us who were not trying to change the country; who were just trying to take care of our lives. I will try to compress those lives into a very small color tile to be added to the large mosaic of the Cuban tragedy."

"It is hard to think of a more fitting epitaph for the Cuban revolution than el desengaño, the disenchantment. Yet, almost perversely, Angela Tischler has taken the word as the title for her pre-revolutionary Cuban memoir. This is just one of the lesser ways in which "Los Desengaños" (in fact the name of disused sugar mill) sets itself apart from other more honeyed tellings of pre-revolutionary Cuban life. It offers a rare glimpse of pre-Revolutionary times in "provincial" Cuba: in this case, the almost waspish province of Camaguey - no Havana-centrism here! It is also unflinchingly honest - sometimes painfully so. The result is a bittersweet portrait of the "Cuba de ayer"; the joys and beauties and simple pleasures that Tischler found in Camaguey's countryside and people (especially her family), but also the province's sadnesses and prejudices - traits that are treated in the same way one might describe the foibles of a cherished family member: with a love that forgives but does not exonerate."
John Paul Rathbone
Rathbone is the Financial Times Latin American Editor. He is the author of "The Sugar King of Havana: the rise and fall off Julio Lobo, Cuba's last tycoon."

Angela Sanchez Tischler celebrated her eightieth birthday by self publishing her memoirs under the imprint A Swan Song Book referring to the myth that mute swans sing once before dying. The title of the book, Los Desengaños, was the name of the cattle ranch in Cuba where she grew up. Angela retired from the Postal Service in 2000 after serving for thirty years. She was then ready for a new career. She explains, During my many years listening to customers from behind a counter I learned that many people have interesting things to tell, both experiences and ideas. I went to the editor of the Courier Journal, the Crescent City, Florida, weekly newspaper, and offered to write a column. I noticed that in this small town, the locals only get in the paper when something happens to them. This column would give them an opportunity to air their opinions and make themselves known. We agreed to call it It s your turn. For five years I interviewed, photographed and wrote about almost anybody willing to talk to me, not just the well known. I did very little original writing, I mostly quoted my subjects. Eventually the idea came to me that it was only fair that if others trusted me with their personal stories, I should trust them with mine. This book is the result.

Lo ha logrado de una manera convincente porque la muerte de un lugar con la gente que lo habitó verdaderamente ocurre cuando se deja de mencionar y, gracias a esta obra, Los Desengaños y el Camagüey de nuestra generación vivirán para siempre. 

El Camagueyano Libre.- Diciembre 2011
Eduardo Pelaez Leyva, Editor

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