"With vivid details and evocative descriptions, Sheppard skillfully interweaves her family''s story with the histories of Cuba, Miami, and the Cuban diaspora . A spellbinding family history." -- Booklist , starred review "In this artfully rendered memoir, Sheppard . flits back and forth between the centuries, weaving Cuban history together with familial lore." -- The New Yorker "This poetic memoir weaves together Cuban history and family history into a tapestry that is both rich and threadbare. Sheppard explores it all--the dark histories, the hidden heartbreaks, the boats lost at sea--with generous curiosity and love. She has made her Cuban ancestors proud with this detailed, unflinching link in the diasporic chain." --Emma Straub , New York Times bestselling author of All Adults Here "Poignant .
Sheppard''s well-researched and haunting memoir is a tribute to a lost homeland and a moving reflection on what it means to live in one country and long for another." -- Shelf Awareness "Beautifully crafted . This is Sheppard at the height of her powers, weaving Cuban history, myth, and literature through the fabric of her family''s narrative of exile . An exquisite reflection on the enduring power of stories." -- Southern Review of Books "Entering The Eternal Forest is like diving into a magic ocean dominated by women named after flowers. Elena Sheppard masterfully covers the history of Cuba from the beginning of the 20th century through a family, divided by exile, loss and reunion. A tribute to abuelas . A read that will stay with you forever.
" --Armando Lucas Correa, bestselling author of The German Girl " The Eternal Forest is a profoundly lyrical and deeply moving exploration of what it means to love, remember, and belong. From Che Guevara''s mythmaking to the upset of exile, Sheppard transports the reader on an unforgettable journey that probes the power of place and displacement. This beautiful book overflows with soul and wisdom." --Bianca Bosker, New York Times bestselling author of Get the Picture "Of the countless memoirs dwelling on the Cuban revolution of 1959, Sheppard''s may be the most heart wrenching and the most beautifully written. In her unflinching yet graceful style, Sheppard memorializes her beloved "small town rich" family, which was sundered in two by the revolution . In her lyrical homage, Sheppard wraps her family''s tragic saga in the rich cloth of Cuban history." -- Foreign Affairs "A must-read that explores the complexities of assimilation, the strength found in the connection to Cuba, and the longing for a forbidden home." -- Library Journal "Sheppard''s narrative voice is both conversational and lyrical, and her love and curiosity for her family leaps off the page .
a fascinating read and an absorbing account of exile." -- Kirkus "Sheppard was raised on her family''s memories . she tells those stories warmly and elegantly here, weaving together family lore and Cuban history to create a vibrant portrait of exile and repatriation." -- Columbia Magazine "Elena Sheppard''s The Eternal Forest is an elegy an one country and long for another." -- Shelf Awareness "Beautifully crafted . This is Sheppard at the height of her powers, weaving Cuban history, myth, and literature through the fabric of her family''s narrative of exile . An exquisite reflection on the enduring power of stories." -- Southern Review of Books "Entering The Eternal Forest is like diving into a magic ocean dominated by women named after flowers.
Elena Sheppard masterfully covers the history of Cuba from the beginning of the 20th century through a family, divided by exile, loss and reunion. A tribute to abuelas . A read that will stay with you forever." --Armando Lucas Correa, bestselling author of The German Girl " The Eternal Forest is a profoundly lyrical and deeply moving exploration of what it means to love, remember, and belong. From Che Guevara''s mythmaking to the upset of exile, Sheppard transports the reader on an unforgettable journey that probes the power of place and displacement. This beautiful book overflows with soul and wisdom." --Bianca Bosker, New York Times bestselling author of Get the Picture "Of the countless memoirs dwelling on the Cuban revolution of 1959, Sheppard''s may be the most heart wrenching and the most beautifully written. In her unflinching yet graceful style, Sheppard memorializes her beloved "small town rich" family, which was sundered in two by the revolution .
In her lyrical homage, Sheppard wraps her family''s tragic saga in the rich cloth of Cuban history." -- Foreign Affairs "A must-read that explores the complexities of assimilation, the strength found in the connection to Cuba, and the longing for a forbidden home." -- Library Journal "Sheppard''s narrative voice is both conversational and lyrical, and her love and curiosity for her family leaps off the page . a fascinating read and an absorbing account of exile." -- Kirkus "Sheppard was raised on her family''s memories . she tells those stories warmly and elegantly here, weaving together family lore and Cuban history to create a vibrant portrait of exile and repatriation." -- Columbia Magazine "Elena Sheppard''s The Eternal Forest is an elegy anwer of place and displacement. This beautiful book overflows with soul and wisdom.
" --Bianca Bosker, New York Times bestselling author of Get the Picture "Of the countless memoirs dwelling on the Cuban revolution of 1959, Sheppard''s may be the most heart wrenching and the most beautifully written. In her unflinching yet graceful style, Sheppard memorializes her beloved "small town rich" family, which was sundered in two by the revolution . In her lyrical homage, Sheppard wraps her family''s tragic saga in the rich cloth of Cuban history." -- Foreign Affairs "A must-read that explores the complexities of assimilation, the strength found in the connection to Cuba, and the longing for a forbidden home." -- Library Journal "Sheppard''s narrative voice is both conversational and lyrical, and her love and curiosity for her family leaps off the page . a fascinating read and an absorbing account of exile." -- Kirkus "Sheppard was raised on her family''s memories . she tells those stories warmly and elegantly here, weaving together family lore and Cuban history to create a vibrant portrait of exile and repatriation.
" -- Columbia Magazine "Elena Sheppard''s The Eternal Forest is an elegy aneppard was raised on her family''s memories . she tells those stories warmly and elegantly here, weaving together family lore and Cuban history to create a vibrant portrait of exile and repatriation." -- Columbia Magazine "Elena Sheppard''s The Eternal Forest is an elegy and a summoning--an attempt to resurrect a lost world only glimpsed through a rusted keyhole, and a reckoning with how much loss saturated that world from the start. This is writing as spell-casting and archival conjuring, a story of second-hand longing, second-hand salt breezes, second-hand grief, full of worlds layered upon worlds, all summoned with lyric grace and an expansive, generous heart." -- Leslie Jamison, New York Times bestselling author of The Empathy Exams "Told in clear, luminous prose, The Eternal Forest turns familiar Cuban tropes of loss and yearning into a profoundly lyrical missive on multi-generational love, responsibility, and devotion. This heartrending family story within the exile narrative poses questions of personal loss and identity within the fraught history of the island itself." -- Rosa Lowinger, author of Dwell Time " The Eternal Forest is a wonderful extended meditation on the intertwining of past and present, and of exile and identity, written with poetic verve. Thoroughly Cuban and thoroughly universal all at once, this riveting text soars above genre distinctions with a beguiling voice and profound wisdom.
" --Carlos Eire, author of Waiting for Snow in Havana " The Eternal Forest is a deeply personal excavation of a family in exile. Sheppard examines, with great love, layers of her family''s history alongside the complicated history of Cuba. A book for anyone who ever wondered if they could go home again." -- Sarah Ruhl, playwright and author of Smile, A Memoir "Exquisitely written, poignant to the edge of heartbreak, The Eternal Forest recounts a very personal story of a very public decades-long diaspora and how choices made for us and before us haunt future generations. Sheppard describes the disorienting sting of exile with amazing insight and compassion. I read her family history as if it were mine, with a lump in my throat and a heat behind my eyes." --Ana Veciana-Suarez, author of Dulcinea, The Chin Kiss King and Flight to Freedom "A layered, finely textured memoir. At the center of The Eternal Forest three generations of Cuban women struggle to reconcile their Cuban past with their American present.
They make new lives which they must struggle to reconcile with longtime histories and long-lived grie.