Synopses & Reviews
A humorous and poignant memoir of a Cuban American girlhood lived between cultures and in the shadow of a father’s incarceration
Jeanine was just two years old when her father, a former Cuban revolutionary turned anti-Castro militant, was sentenced to thirty years in a Miami prison for political bombings. His absence left a single mother to raise four children who conjure a father-hero out of occasional letters and prison-yard visits.
As Cornillot travels between Little Havana, spending summers with her Spanish-speaking relatives, and Philadelphia, where she lives with her Irish American family, a wry and unsentimental narrator emerges.
Eventually, a child’s mythology is replaced with an adult’s reality in a final reckoning with her father, remarkable for the unsparing honesty on both sides.
About the Author
An Emmy Award–winning producer, Jeanine Cornillot began her career as a documentary editor, and has written and produced shows for CBS, NBC, and ABC. Cornillot has also coproduced a feature public radio documentary based on Family Sentence, which aired on BBC radio. She lives in Los Angeles.