This was an incredibly challenging read. The author doesn't use quotation marks and there is a lot of dialogue between characters interspersed with narration. It took a great deal of focus to keep track of who was speaking and when, and it significantly impacted the opportunity to engage with and enjoy the overall story.

The story itself is okay, but I found myself missing why it was particularly compelling. It may be that the problem with dialogue made it harder to connect with the characters, but it was definitely challenging to really find significance in what seems like it should be a very significant story.

[Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher via Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review.] ( )

When I finished The Mortifications, I went back to the description on the cover, and the various snippets of reviews. I am convinced that I must have read a different book. Apart from being bleak and depressing from start to finish, the religious aspects of the story were not to my liking. It left me feeling that I was eavesdropping on the author's private reckoning with God. I enjoyed the descriptions of everyday Cuban life and the realities of the 'Special Period' and the Revolution, the undercurrent of in-your-face Catholicism was neither what I expected nor enjoyed. Pretty disappointing. ( )

The Mortifications tells the story of a Cuban family that immigrated to the US, and how their lives there transform each of them in different ways. The exploration of what home and family mean for immigrants was relatable and revelatory. ( )

One of the reviewers mentioned Palacio's "flat writing style, as well as the closeness/distance he chose for his characters, felt so bland and uninteresting." I think one thing happening here is the characters seem to know a lot more about their realities than it would seem possible. They are aware of the exile psychology, the role of their stepfather in their lives, the politics of diaspora, the role of Catholicism in their lives, that seem preternaturally impossible for children but possible for adults. Other reviewers noted the hyperbolic self-awareness of these characters, and I wondered if it would be so problematic if they had been adults, recalling their stories from the future, with the apt amount of self-awareness and wisdom earned. One of my friends says that adult-like children are a trend in fiction. That said, when we were finally free of that exposition of childhood that takes up the first half of the book, once we get to Cuba (returning as we must through the epic lens of the main character of Ulises), it turns out that perhaps the son is both Ulysses and Telemachus in this reframing. The Oedipal take on the mother's sexuality is evocatively connected to Catholic guilt and nationalistic loyalty to Cuba--and it's so subtle that it may be missed by some readers. It's a solid novel, making clear the choice that must be made between living by principles and surviving as a matter of pragmatism. I loved the dialogue... I think dialogue is Palacio's strength. It's clipped, relentless, and drives the best writing in the book. ( )

rom the Bay of Pigs invasion to the Cuban Missile Crisis, from the Mariel Boatlift to Elian Gonzalez, from diplomatic ties cut off to ties renewed, Cuba has long loomed large in the American imagination. Cuba lies just 103 miles off the Florida Coast and until travel between the two countries became possible again, every year there were news reports of people risking their lives to make that crossing, to land in the US and the Cuban expat and Cuban-American community in Miami is a large, vibrant, and thriving one. But not all Cuban immigrants ended up in Miami; some went much farther afield. In Derek Palacio's novel The Mortifications, the Encarnacion family, mother Soledad, and twins Isabel and Ulises flee their country in the Mariel Boatlift, leaving behind father and political rebel Uxbal as they work their way north to the city of Hartford, Connecticut.

The family settles into life in the US, unable to truly leave behind their memories of Cuba and Uxbal. Each of the characters is haunted by the past even as they grow and change in the present. Soledad meets Willems, a Dutch tobacco farmer, who becomes her lover. Isabel, nicknamed the Death Torch in her community, finds a strange connection to death, helping the dying to the other side, and eventually goes deep into the religion of her father. The bookish Ulises grows to gigantic proportions and almost inhuman strength as he helps Willems nurture tobacco in the unlikely soil of Connecticut. Years into the family's exile, a letter arrives from Uxbal and each of the three Encarnacions is pulled by the Cuban past none of them has ever broken free of.

The novel is a complex and philosophical character study and the third person narration moves focus from Soledad to Isabel to Ulises allowing the reader insight into each of these unusual characters. The characters all suffer their own mortifications, sacrifices that mark them indelibly. This is not magical realism but it is certainly in that tradition; it has a Catholic sensibility with a mythical feel to it. Palacio has captured the loneliness and longing of each of the characters, their reaching for a connection, for home, and for family that has never been completely forgotten. Each of them is desperately seeking a happiness that eludes them, their melancholy burrowing deep in their flesh and bones. The writing is well done but somehow the story feels flattened and the reading of it is slow and deliberate. There are no quotation marks around dialogue here, causing speech to run into thought and vice versa. Because of the strange ponderousness of the tale, this is really only suited for big fans of literary fiction. ( )