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The Agüero Sisters

Published in 1997 by The Ballantine Publishing Group, The Agüero Sisters was Cristina Garcia's second novel. Like her first novel Dreaming in Cuban, The Agüero Sisters was written in English with Spanish words appearing throughout the text. While Garcia has not commented on her reasoning for writing in English over Spanish despite her Latinx Heritage, many have speculated. Speculations vary from orality being a central theme in her writing to pan-ethnicity being major facet of her stories.

Description

"Reina and Constancia Agüero are Cuban sisters who have been estranged for thirty years. Reina—tall, darkly beautiful, and magnetically sexual—still lives in her homeland. Once a devoted daughter of la revolución, she now basks in the glow of her many admiring suitors, believing only in what she can grasp with her five senses. The pale and very petite Constancia lives in the United States, a beauty expert who sees miracles and portents wherever she looks. After she and her husband retire to Miami, she becomes haunted by the memory of her parents and the unexplained death of her beloved mother so long ago.

Told in the stirring voices of their parents, their daughters, and themselves, The Agüero Sisters tells a mesmerizing story about the power of myth to mask, transform, and finally, reveal the truth—as two women move toward an uncertain, long awaited reunion."

Characters

Major Characters

Constancia

The eldest Agüero sister, Constancia is unsettled throughout much of the novel. As a child her father tells her of her mother's suicide, later she unhappily moves to Miami, Florida from New York City for a business deal of her husband's. A dream prompts her to open a Cuban cosmetics line that she builds and maintains while trying to confront the past and rekindle relationships with family members.

Reina

The youngest Agüero sister, and Constancia's biological half sibling, Reina's biological father is unknown, and is described only as "an elegant man." While her sister immigrated to the United States, Reina remained in Cuba working as an electrician before she is injured in a freak accident involving lightning. Her injury inspired her to rekindle her relationship with her sister.

Blanca Mestre

The enigmatic and somewhat mysterious mother of Constancia and Reina, Blanca's favoritism of Reina leads to conflict between the sisters in their adulthood. At the beginning of the novel she is murdered by her husband Ignacio.

Ignacio Agüero

A biology professor and father to Constancia and Reina, husband to Blanca, Ignacio is a character full of secrets. His secrets are steadily unearthed as sections of his writing appear throughout the novel.

Minor Characters

Heberto Cruz

The husband of Constancia and a notoriously fickle character throughout the novel due to his changing business interests, Heberto suddenly joins a counter-revolutionary cause with his brother Gonzalo toward the beginning of the novel. He later dies fighting for his cause.

Gonzalo

A Cuban counter revolutionary, Constancia's first husband, Heberto's brother, and biological father of Silvestre, Gonzalo is smothered by Silvestre on his deathbed following an injury he received fighting for the counter-revolutionary cause.

Isabel

Constancia's daughter, and absent for much of the novel, Isabel shows up pregnant with Raku, her son, after being abandoned by her long time boyfriend toward the end.

Silvestre

Constancia and Gonzalo's son, Silvestre was abandoned by his father before his birth.

Dulce

Reina's daughter, Dulce inherits her mothers intense sexuality and free spirit.

Themes

Motherhood

With the novel focusing on Blanca's death and resolving family mysteries, trauma, and history it is no surprise that motherhood occurs as a common theme throughout the book. There are several instances referencing motherhood including the appearance of all Reina and Constancia's children throughout the novel, Isabel's predicament, and Constancia and Reina's relationship with their mother preceding her death. Most notably, there is Ignacio's traumatic birth story. With this birth story, some scholars argue that birth with its trauma on the maternal body is violent for its affects on the body, but also for its act of separation for a child and womb. However, motherhood and birth are also necessary for their life-giving purposes. With this motherhood "becomes a source of both life and death: not just Ignacio, but the very Republic destined to suffer premature, violent ends." The concept of motherhood throughout The Agüero Sisters is not confined only to literal motherhood, but expands to include the birth and raising of young nations like Cuba.

Femininity

Constancia and Reina, two very different women with very different personalities, represent their femininity in different ways throughout the novel. Their mother represented femininity in a traditional sense with many men perceiving and describing her as an object throughout her youth; Constancia and Reina avoid this in their narrative portrayals. Instead, they represent two different feminine ideals. Constancia adopts an expatriate, "white," American-capitalist view of femininity with her cosmetics business. Reina on the other hand exudes pure feminine sexual energy, and confidence in her "mulatta" skin. The novel doesn't portray either form of femininity as better than the other as each sister finds empowerment in her own way. This juxtaposition between the differing femininity of both sisters introduces a conversation about femininity and beauty that is touched on throughout the narrative.

Santeria

Santeria is referenced several times throughout The Agüero Sisters Blanca regularly practiced and Constancia visits with a religious man who insists she visit Cuba. While references to Santeria are generally scattered about the novel's narrative, some scholars have argued that Blanca serves as an embodiment of Santeria gods. Additionally, the presence of Santeria throughout the novel adds a supernatural element to the narrative, contributing to Cristina Garcia's magical realism influenced style of writing. Scholars also suggest that the supernatural elements provide a means of resolving tensions between characters, the past, and Cuban society as a whole given the divided nature of Cubans in Cuba and expatriates.

Reception/Analysis

Much like her first novel Dreaming in Cuban, The Agüero Sisters was well received by the public thanks to Cristina Garcia's "deft and supple" writing. Her story of a reunifying family that collides with the politics and trauma of a nation divided by conflict and politics leaves readers with a lot to think about after reading her novel.

Overall, The Agüero Sisters is a complicated novel. It doesn't seem to paint a clear view of the morality of its characters, nor does it seem to cast significant judgement on any opinion associated with the heavy themes it touches on. Ultimately it complicates a readers notion of Cuban conflicts and what it means to live in a world with the developing history of Cuba. This act of complication is beneficial to the understanding of Cuba and its immigrants as it's a multifaceted, complicated, and often painful history that can't and shouldn't be confined to a single narrative or opinion of truthful storytelling, which is often messy and multisided.