Monkey Hunting [Hardcover]

Cristina Garcia (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 2003

The new novel—her first in six years—from the acclaimed author of Dreaming in Cuban and The Agüero Sisters follows one family from China to Cuba to America in an emotionally resonant tale of immigration, assimilation, and the powerful integrity of self.

In 1857, when Chen Pan signs a contract that will take him from China “beyond the edge of the world to Cuba,” he has no idea that he will be enslaved on a sugarcane plantation . . . or that he will eventually, miraculously, escape his bonds and embark on a prosperous life in Havana’s Chinatown . . . or that he will buy a mulatto woman out of slavery and take her into his home and heart . . . or that he will end his long days in Havana, surrounded by children and grandchildren, as Cuban as he is Chinese.

In a vivid tapestry of incident and feeling, Chen Pan’s life story is interwoven with those of two of his descendants: his granddaughter, Chen Fang, born in China and raised as a boy so she could be educated, her life coming to its end in one of Mao’s hellish prisons, and Domingo, Chen Pan’s great-great-grandson, who, with his father, becomes an American citizen after Castro’s revolution, only to lose his parent to the false promises of the American dream, and himself, finally, to the madness of wartime Vietnam.

Deeply stirring, wonderfully evocative of time and place, rendered in the lyrical prose that is Cristina García’s hallmark, Monkey Hunting brilliantly illuminates a generations-long struggle toward a sense of true belonging.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The Chinese-Cuban experience is plumbed in this graceful third novel by Garcia (Dreaming in Cuban; The Aguero Sisters), encompassing five far-flung generations, four countries and two tumultuous centuries. Farm boy Chen Pan leaves his native China in 1857, dreaming of the riches awaiting him in mysterious Cuba. Instead, he is obliged to work on a sugarcane plantation, subjected to the atrocities of forced servitude in a country that is not his own and in which he is viewed with suspicion. He eventually manages to escape and creates a life for himself beyond his wildest dreams, as a successful small-business owner, beloved husband and doting father. Becoming almost more Cuban than Chinese, he falls in love with Lucrecia, a former slave. His mixed-blood descendants, scattered between Cuba and China, struggle to find their place in a world that strives to keep its ethnic and geographical boundaries distinct. Chen Fang, a granddaughter raised as a boy in China, is a remarkable woman who manages to get an education and become a teacher, eventually landing in one of Mao's appalling prisons in 1970 Shanghai. As a teenager, great-grandson Domingo Chen departs Cuba for New York with his father and faces the same hostility and racism there that Chen Pan dealt with in mid-19th-century Havana. Domingo's journey from Cuba to New York then Vietnam is told in unsparing detail, bringing the novel full circle. Though Garcia ranges farther afield here than in previous works, her prose is as tight and polished as ever. The book is rather short for its span, and a bit more development of some characters-particularly Chen Fang-would have been welcome, but that is a mere quibble. Garcia's novel is a richly patterned mini-epic, a moving chorus of distinct voices.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Garcia, of Dreaming in Cuban (1992) and The Aguero Sisters (1997) renown, writes pristinely lyrical and enchanting prose, and creates powerfully alluring characters, delectable qualities she takes to new heights in this many-faceted tale about an extended Chinese Cuban family. The novel begins in China in 1857 when Chen Pan is tricked into indentured servitude and shipped to Cuba where he is sold as a slave and put to work cutting sugar cane. Strong and resilient, he eventually escapes and becomes a successful and upright Havana businessman who gallantly liberates a mulatto slave, Lucrecia, and her infant son. In between passages devoted to Chen Pan and Lucrecia, who eventually become lovers, Garcia travels back to China to tell the harrowing tale of Chen Fang--an unwanted third daughter disguised as a son in her youth and deprived of everything she holds dear as an adult once the communists come to power--then moves on to 1960s Vietnam, where Domingo, the son of a Chinese Cuban herbalist, barely survives the war. Gorgeously detailed and entrancingly told, erotic, mystical, and wise, Garcia's bittersweet saga of a family of remarkable individuals spans a century of displacement, war, and sacrifice, and a world of forbearance and love. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf; 1st edition (April 15, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375410562
• ISBN-13: 978-0375410567
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #289,251 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

NOTE TO READERS: If you'd like your copy of The Lady Matador's Hotel signed and/or dedicated, please message me through my website and I'll let you know where to send the book(s). Book clubs welcome! Return postage on me. Ole!

Cristina García is the author of five novels: Dreaming in Cuban, The Agüero Sisters, Monkey Hunting, A Handbook to Luck, and The Lady Matador's Hotel.
García has edited two anthologies, Cubanísimo: The Vintage Book of Contemporary Cuban Literature and Bordering Fires: The Vintage Book of Contemporary Mexican and Chicano/a Literature. Two works for young readers, The Dog Who Loved the Moon, and I Wanna Be Your Shoebox were published in 2008. A collection of poetry, The Lesser Tragedy of Death, was recently published by Akashic Press. Her new young adult novel, Dreams of Significant Girls, will be published in July 2011.

García's work has been nominated for a National Book Award and translated into a dozen languages. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writers' Award, a Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University, and an NEA grant, among others. She has taught literature and writing at numerous universities and divides her time between Texas and northern New Mexico. Please visit her website at www.cristinagarcianovelist.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Time, Change, Loss and Memory, June 4, 2003

By 

Louis N. Gruber "Author of Jay" (Lexington, SC United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Monkey Hunting (Hardcover)

From his village in China, Chen Pan, aged twenty, is tricked into indentured servitude, shipped across the oceans to Cuba, and for the next few years he will work as a slave cutting sugar cane. The year is 1857. Time rolls on. Chen Pan has children, grand-children, great grand-children. The story moves easily between the generations, between China and Cuba and the United States and Viet Nam, returning in the end to Chen Pan, now eighty years old, 1917.

There is no tightly crafted plot here, no suspense, no dramatic surprises. The book is a series of scenes, vignettes, from the lives of this remarkable family, their times, the countries where they live, social change, their loves and their losses, brief moments of optimism and joy, against a background of growing old, suffering, sorrow and clinging to memory.

It is a beautifully written, exquisite memoir. Author Garcia evokes wonderful portraits of times and places and creates engaging characters, using simple and lucid language. Once you pick up this book you will never want to put it down, for you will become part of the Chen family forever. This is a masterpiece and I can't recommend it too highly. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Interesting idea, terrible end result, February 4, 2008

By 

Illustrisimus (USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Monkey Hunting (Hardcover)

I generally prefer reading reviews than writing them, but when something excites or upsets me I want to share it with the world. Garcia creates interesting outlines of characters and, in my opinion, utterly fails to deliver them to the reader. I have to write a response paper on this and all I want to say is that she has no clue what she is doing and that it should be used as kindling. It's obvious that she can write, and some of the passages are beautiful and engaging, but overall the characters don't come to life and I am kept wondering - what on earth was the point of this book? Blah.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Garcia, Explore a Saga for this, February 7, 2007

By 

J. Arreola "Book Lover in WI" (Friendship WI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Monkey Hunting (Hardcover)

I love Christina Garcia and looked so forward to reading this book which may be why I am so let down. Typically I am able to get the entire picture from a novel, even if it is not plot driven - which this one had absolutely no plot, no character growth and no reason to continue reading. The concept is excellent, finding the descendents from one country (China) and tracing them through three eras and three countries (China, Cuba, and America)! Definitely a concept worth exploring maybe more in a saga type novel, not a 251 page novel where you have no time to explore the characters and their connections to one another. Not to take anything away from Garcia - Dreaming in Cuban was set up similar to this, but you had more time with each character and came to love and show concern for what happened to them. Here, you just didn't care because you didn't really know the characters. The linear patterns for all three characters went like this, born, shifted location, something big happens, death or in Chen Pan's case immortality. The something big that happened was also so slight that you barely knew something happened overall. There were no problems, just daily life adjusting the characters, again no reason to read. This is just my opinion and I may be missing the big picture on this one, but I typically don't.