Beatriz Terrazas reviews Guillermo Rosales' The Halfway House
Read More
The Halfway House is a violent tale about a mentally ill Cuban exile. Though fiction, the book is based on the author's own life.
Guillermo Rosales fled Cuba in 1979 and, due to severe schizophrenia, spent much time in what were called boarding homes or halfway houses in Miami. Ostensibly for people who needed psychiatric help, they were dumping grounds for those considered unfit for society.
The book is narrated by William Figueras, a writer who by 15 "had read the great Proust, Hesse, Joyce, Miller, Mann," and who claims to have been driven mad by Cuba's communist regime.
The halfway house, he says, is where the "desperate and hopeless go – crazy ones for the most part, with a smattering of old people abandoned by their families to die of loneliness so they won't screw up life for the winners."
Guillermo Rosales fled Cuba in 1979 and, due to severe schizophrenia, spent much time in what were called boarding homes or halfway houses in Miami. Ostensibly for people who needed psychiatric help, they were dumping grounds for those considered unfit for society.
The book is narrated by William Figueras, a writer who by 15 "had read the great Proust, Hesse, Joyce, Miller, Mann," and who claims to have been driven mad by Cuba's communist regime.
The halfway house, he says, is where the "desperate and hopeless go – crazy ones for the most part, with a smattering of old people abandoned by their families to die of loneliness so they won't screw up life for the winners."
Read More
No comments:
Post a Comment