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Late 1960s. We meet three children: Enrique Florit, from Cuba, living in southern California with his flamboyant magician father . . . Marta Claros, getting by in the slums of San Salvador, forced to leave school to help support her family, her beloved older brother having already left home . . . Leila Rezvani, a well-to-do surgeon’s daughter in Tehran, her mother concerned only with appearances, her father an often foolishly vocal opponent of the Shah.
As we follow them across the next twenty years we see chance draw Leila and Marta into Enrique’s life–Leila and Enrique loving and losing each other, Marta the means to renewed hope for Enrique–and, throughout, “good luck or bad tilting life one way or another” for all of them.
With its cast of vividly drawn characters, its graceful movement through time, and its subtle revelation of the essential hopes and doubts of ordinary people whose lives are made extraordinary by circumstance, A HANDBOOK TO LUCK is Cristina García’s most beautiful, elegiac, and deeply emotional novel yet.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
April 10, 2007 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781415939673
- File size: 221480 KB
- Duration: 07:41:24
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Garcia artfully weaves together the lives of Cuban émigré Enrique Florit, son of a Las Vegas magician; Marta Claros, who escapes the slums of San Salvador; and Leila Rezvani, a young woman living in oppressive luxury in Tehran. Meeting the challenge of these characters from vastly differing backgrounds, narrator Staci Snell skillfully produces singular personalities. Each accent is subtly shaded, each phrase carefully paced to reflect Cuban, Salvadoran, or Iranian sensibilities. In alternating sections covering twenty years, as the characters' lives and dreams intersect, Snell voices each story with passion and compassion, yet maintains a respectful distance. Her performance draws listeners into the exotic, violent, sensual lives of the three main characters and creates an assortment of fascinating secondary ones. S.J.H. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine
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