Product Description

Based on the wildly popular, semi-autobiographical Havana Honey series published by Salon.com, "Dirty Blonde and Half-Cuban" is a gritty portrait of one woman's determination to infiltrate modern Cuba and find the father she has never known.

While on her search, privileged American Alysia Briggs ends up broke and alone in Havana. She's then forced to adopt the life of the "jineteras" -- educated Cuban women who supplement a desperate income by accommodating sex tourists.

With an eye for detail and a razor wit, Lisa Wixon relates Alysia's journey and creates a love-song to Cuba, a heartfelt tribute to a resilient people facing soul-numbing poverty in a land where MDs and Ph.D.s earn $18 a month, and a pair jeans cost twice as much.

Winner: The Mariposa Award 2005 for "Best First Book" (Latino Literacy Now)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1527435 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-01
• Released on: 2006-04-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In search of her Cuban roots in modern-day Havana, American Alysia Briggs reinvents herself in Wixon's frank, fearless novel, based on her Salon.com Havana Honey series. At 13, Alysia loses her mother to cancer and is then raised in privilege by her cold, WASPy diplomat father. But she later confirms that her birth father was native Cuban José Antonio. Determined to track him down, Alysia dashes off to Cuba, but when all her cash is stolen and her diplomat father turns his back on her, she is stranded. Wixon evokes the exigencies of Cuban life as she graphically details Alysia's entrance into the sex trade and transformation to a jinetera, or jockey, "a fitting metaphor for what many educated and beautiful Cuban women do after hours to feed their families as well as their dreams." Though Wixon renders Alysia's yearning for José Antonio and her attraction to Cuba palpable while vividly capturing Havana's rhythms and the power imbalance between struggling native women and North American sexual tourists, the narrator's acceptance of the call-girl lifestyle is rife with contradiction. Alysia presents the role as empowering and occasionally pleasurable at the same time she reveals it as a dangerous and last-ditch response to poverty. Wixon leaves the reader, like Alysia, bewitched by Havana's allure even as the heroine's immersion in jinterismo strains credibility. Agent, Stephanie Abou. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
This first novel was initially excerpted in the online magazine Salon and features the ruthless sexual marketplace that is modern Cuba. Alysia Vilar travels to Cuba to track down her real father, a translator with whom her mother had an affair. Almost immediately, all of her money is stolen, and the thieving landlords kick her out of the house. She is taken in by a respected Havana heart surgeon named Camila, who makes $32 a month and supplements her salary by acquiring foreign boyfriends who deposit money into her account. Camila^B is known as a jinetera, and in order to survive and fund the search for her father, Alysia becomes one also. In a series of brutally graphic scenarios, Alysia plays out a grotesque form of courtship, in which she disguises her true ethnicity and her education and falsely flatters potential foreign boyfriends, known as yumas, into parting with vast sums of money. Part survival story, part eye-opening morality tale, this novel hits hardest in its depiction of proud women forced to prostitute themselves just to live. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"...A compelling portrait of a woman coming to embrace her inner hybrid." -- Lynn Harris, The Washington Post (June 29, 2005)

"...Scandalously entertaining..." -- Fresh Air, National Public Radio/NPR (June 20, 2005)

"An eye-opening portrait of contemporary Havana. . . A bracing tale -- told with humor and welcome frankness, both political and sexual." -- Mark Rozzo, Los Angeles Times (July 3, 2005)

"Most interesting are Wixon's observations about identity, particularly what it is like for young Cuban-Americans returning to the island." -- Christine Armario, The Miami Herald (May 22, 2005)

"Ready to be discovered and devoured." -- Chicago Tribune (June 5, 2005)

Customer Reviews

Fantastic!
This is a phenomenal read. You simply can't put this book down. Though this is only her first novel, Lisa Wixon's witty writing and daring subject choice will no doubt put her on the map as a writer to be reckoned with. While even she may dismiss Dirty Blonde and Half-Cuban as a cute summer beach read, the story of Alysia Vilar will stay with you long after your Hamptons mini-break. Alysia's plight is one of gargantuan proportions: A privileged American trapped in communist Cuba with no money, no way out, the only thing keeping her going is her impassioned, all-consuming desire (that only a Cuban can have) to find her astringed biological father living somewhere in Havana. In order to survive, Alysia joins the ranks the jineteras -- educated professionals who prostitute themselves to wealthy tourists. Ms. Wixon accurately and poignantly documents this real life practice without judgment. Throughout her search, Alysia befriends several eccentric characters that help to keep her spirits high, but no character is more important to Alysia than Havana itself. Soon into the story, Alysia discovers she is of Cuban decent, but it's only towards the end of her memoirs that Alysia realizes she is not just Cuban, but Cuba. I highly recommend this book, enthusiastically and without reservation.

Fabulous and amazing.
First of all, do not read this book if you have something to do the next day because you will absolutely not be able to put it down. Second, this is not chick lit, which I was kind of expecting. It's so much more.

This is a story of longing to know our blood families and to know our homeland. As a Cuban-American, and someone who has returned several times to Cuba to visit family, I find the writer's observations to be exact and sometimes brilliant. The writing is deceptively simple but there's so much under the surface.

What impresses me most is that the writer is able to write about the Cubans with such heart-felt empathy. She shows what women and men are doing to get through the day, but never judges or condems them. I have seen people in Cuba do what she describes, but I never allowed myself to imagine how it would feel to be a jinetera and sell myself to sex tourists.

What I like most about this story is how she shows the dignity of the Cuban people,and how even those who have to hustle and sell sex are very proud and tryng to provide for their families.

You will feel for the main character Alysia, you will go through ever trial with her as if you were right there. I kept asking myself what I would do in her situation. . .If you are tired of men writing about Cuban women as if they are all hot to trot mamas , you will enjoy this refreshing and honest look at Cuban women (and men).

I've put this book on the top of my long running Listmania list of books and movies that will make you fall in love with Havana. If you like this book, check out Dirty Havana Trilogy by Pedro Juan Gutierrez or watch Soy Cuba on DVD.

Accurate
My wife bought this and I picked it up and read through the whole weekend. Not an easy story to hear but is humor filled and well written. Interesting about sexual tourism from the perspective of the women who are the victims. The best line in the book refers to sexual colonialism. . .exactly what is happening in Cuba. . .