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book Details
  • 09/2020
  • 9781952483127
  • 296 pages
  • $17.95
Stephen E. Murphy
Author
Havana Odyssey: Chasing Ochoa's Ghost
“Havana Odyssey: Chasing Ochoa’s Ghost is an insightful look at modern-day Cuba. The book is sympathetic to the Cuban people yet critical of the inner workings of the authoritarian state. This historical novel reads fast, offering romance, treachery, and personal redemption.” ---Dr. Jaime Suchlicki, Director, The Cuban Studies Institute (Coral Gables, FL). Author, Cuba: From Columbus to Castro and Beyond. Professor Luke Shannon gets upbraided by a Cuban exile at Seattle University. 30 years ago, Luke didn’t keep his promise to Ana Sanchez, a high-profile dissident and his former lover. Her uncle was Cuba’s deceased Hero of the Republic, General Arnaldo Ochoa. Luke promised to tell his story to the world. Luke finds out that Ana is still alive but in failing health. In Miami, he catches Cubana Aviacion’s last flight to Havana. Then Covid-19 hits Cuba in 2020. All bets are off if Luke will prevail. His odyssey takes him through police interrogations, steamy salsa clubs and tropical storms. The Inspector, tipped off by Cuban intelligence, is intent on taking him down. Whom can Luke trust? Startling news slaps him in the face. Now he must escape. "Can Luke keep his promise or will he die trying?" Note: The demise of General Arnoldo Ochoa is a topic of debate among expatriates and cognoscenti of Cuba. Ochoa’s military campaigns in Africa are still taught at the U.S. and Russian War Colleges. This book is based on 65 interviews of Cubans in-country and from exiles abroad. Its places and names have been changed to protect the innocent.
Plot/Idea: 8 out of 10
Originality: 9 out of 10
Prose: 7 out of 10
Character/Execution: 8 out of 10
Overall: 8.00 out of 10

Assessment:

Plot: Murphy’s novel is a well-plotted look at life in modern-day Cuba. Readers will breeze through the short chapters to eagerly discover out if protagonist Luke Shannon is able to stay safe.

Prose/Style: Murphy’s writing excels when describing life in Cuba. Overly formal dialogue occasionally hinders reader engagement.

Originality: Readers will find long-lost and newly discovered loves, brutal police tactics, and a vivid look at life in modern-day Cuba, set against the nation’s true history. Murphy’s novel feels authentic and original.

Character Development: Havana Odyssey features a large cast of diverse characters. Luke Shannon is believable as a professor hoping to find his lost love and learn more about the nation's history.

Date Submitted: August 18, 2020

Reviews
Peace Corps

 

Havana Odyssey: Chasing Ochoa’s Ghost
by Stephen Murphy (HQ Staff 2002-03)
Self Published
296 pages
July 2020
$17.95 (Paperback), $8.49 (Kindle);

Reviewed by Sean Sullivan (Liberia 1970-72; staff 1970-76)

It took Odysseus 10 years of incredible adventures to make his way back to his home in Ithaca after winning the Trojan War, as the ancient Greek writer Homer relates. It took Stephen Murphy 10 days to return home after his epic journey in Cuba, as he recounts in his fascinating new book, Havana Odyssey: Chasing Ochoa’s Ghost. Both books, the former written 2500 years ago, the latter 25 days ago, mix fact with fiction and hold the reader spellbound.

Fact: Murphy had a brief affair in 1989 with Cuban dissident Ana Sanchez when they met while he was the U. S. Information Agency’s TV director in Washington DC. Ana was the niece of Arnaldo Ochoa, Cuba’s most decorated and famous general, noted for his leadership in exporting the Castro government’s revolution to South America and Africa. When the general returned from the wars, he was feted throughout Cuba and made Hero of the Republic, the nation’s highest honor, wherever he went, people would stand spontaneously to cheer him. Then, suddenly, he and three other popular generals were arrested and executed by firing squad. The charge was drug running and treason. The U. S. government had previously accused Raul Castro, Cuba’s Defense Minister and Fidel’s brother, of running drugs, so many within Cuba and without believed that the drug charge against Ochoa was to deflect attention away from Raul while simultaneously eliminating a potential rival for the island’s leadership. Others believed both men were drug runners. Whatever the truth, the execution of the general has remained very controversial inside and outside Cuba.

Murphy promised Ana that he would tell the general’s story to the world. Unfortunately, one day while he and Ana were out for a walk, Ana was kidnapped, presumably by agents of the Cuban government. She was returned to Cuba, and as a dissident and member of the Ochoa family, could not communicate with Murphy, or anyone outside of Cuba. Murphy never forgot his promise, but 31 years of life interceded, and it was only when another dissident told him that Ana was ill did he finally take action.

Fact and Fiction: Murphy did go to Cuba. Three times. And the “true-life” novel is a condensed account of his experiences during his trips to the island. The saddest experience for Murphy — who in the book goes by the name of Luke Shannon — was discovering that Ana had died just a few weeks before he arrived. The highlight of the novel was that Shannon, in Ochoa and Ana’s home town, discovering that he had a son, his “only begotten son” as he put it. Father and son discovered each other during an intense Santeria ceremony. Santeria is an Afro-Caribbean religion based on African Yoruba beliefs and traditions, with some Roman Catholic elements added, that is popular in Cuba, especially in the countryside. As Santeria believers danced and swayed under a giant tree, a fierce bolt of lightning struck the tree and suddenly, in this moment of illumination, Shannon and son recognized each other and hastily made a getaway together, becoming inseparable for the rest of the book. (I asked the author if he had really found his son, or was that part of the fiction. He declined to answer. You’ll have to decide for yourself.)

While father and son finding each other and eventually escaping the island together is the most exciting and powerful episode of the novel, Murphy’s on the ground reporting of what life is like for the Cuban people today is the sad subtext.

No one trusts anyone in today’s Cuba. When Murphy arrived in Cuba for the first time, he was interrogated by “the Inspector,” a government true-believer who hounded the author throughout his stays in the country. The Inspector reflected the Cuban reality that “Big Brother is watching.”

Telephones are tapped. Hotel clerks, tourist guides, taxi drivers, hangers-on, everyone is on the government’s payroll. Or snitches to curry favor with the government. As one sympathetic character says to Shannon, “everyone is seeking an advantage.” The average Cuban makes $1 a day if they are lucky. So seeking an advantage has become a way of life.

There are “good guys” though. One of the government’s intelligence officers, who had served with Ochoa, originally gave Shannon a hard time when he asked to see records related to the general’s trial. Later, he helped Shannon, and a friend, leave the island unscathed. Catholic priests and evangelicals associated with home churches (20,000 of them on the island) were especially helpful to Murphy/Shannon.

Murphy is an old hand in the Spanish speaking world. He speaks fluent Spanish and Portuguese and has lived and worked in Spanish speaking countries for decades. As director of World Wide Television, he worked with prominent Cuban exiles to bring Radio/TV Marti on air. He has held executive positions at the Inter-American Development Bank and the Peace Corps, among other organizations. His close ties to Cuba and the trust he has earned with Cubans inside and outside the island nation have provided him unvarnished insights into today’s poor, totalitarian Cuba. And enabled him to write this international thriller, which I highly recommend.

After a brief career as a journalist, Sean Sullivan ( PCV & Staff 1970-76) was with the Peace Corps in D,C. Liberia, Mauritius, Swaziland, Botswana, Lesotho.  After the Peace Corps, he started a marketing communications agency in Stamford, CT. Later he and his partners started Advanced Drug Development Systems. His latest venture was Black-I Environmental. 

 

2 Comments

 

News
08/24/2020
Cuban home churches versus Santeria

When I first visited Cuba, clerics warned me about Santeria or the “worship of saints,” a fusion of Yoruba gods, masqueraded as Catholic saints. In chapter 21 of my new book, I tremble to recall the ululation of the santeros dressed in white, circling a Ceiba tree at midnight in Cacocúm, Ochoa’s hometown.

Read more in HAVANA ODYSSEY: CHASING OCHOA’S GHOST, when released online, September 7, 2020, “si Dios quiere.”

What I didn’t expect to find in Cuba’s countryside, were small “home churches” in pastors’ backyards or under mango trees. I heard many “Alleluias”, stomping of feet and people enthusiastically singing and clapping.

The spirit of Light was moving among the impromptu congregations, trying to extinguish the darker side. I joined “Cubanos de fé” in Holguin and raised my hands high.

So how do I describe my own walk in faith? My father was a baptized Catholic but angry at the church. My mother was a Methodist and took us to a University Lutheran, which followed Catholic liturgy. After all, Martin Luther was an ordained priest. At the University of Washington, Fr. “Joy” shepherded me back to the Catholic creed, though I let my hormones and exuberance lead me astray.

For decades, I was a “zig zag Catholic,” putting “God in a box,” to not disturb my own “life style.” Later, the Holy Spirit led me on a journey of “serendipitous” events. Read more in “On the Edge: An Odyssey”, Chapter eight, “Miami Beach,” when I surrendered to the Light.

This was my state of spirit when I wandered Cuba’s interior. After a pleasant café cubano, I’d listen to my hosts recount their own twists and turns in faith. I joined them at a lively “home church” service for a couple hours and lunched on tasty Moros, black beans mixed with rice. Their smiles and spirits were bright.

After banning “home churches” for decades, the Castros relented during the “special period” of the ‘90s. The Soviets abandoned the regime financially and daily life proved harsh.

“They needed us to fill the gap of social and health services in the provinces,” a pastor intoned. “House churches gained momentum and God invaded the darkness. At the grassroots, we began to do His work.”

Wikipedia estimates that there are nominally 60% Catholics in Cuba, 30% agnostics, 5-10% “evangelicals” – mainly Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists and Pentecostals. Pastors of Catholic and Protestant churches cautioned, however, that “Santeria is always lurking in the corner.”

A nun described how santeros entered her parish, twirling red and white beads of “Changó”, the most feared god of Santeria. “Then they knelt before the statue of Santa Barbara in a corner and chanted in strange tongues.”

During my last visit, I discovered a ritual sacrifice placed inside the gnarly roots of the Ceiba, “the holy tree of Cuba.” I describe this scene in Chapter 14, with a bleeding rooster’s neck wrapped in red and white ribbons, flapping in the breeze. The memory still gives me pause.

“As Santeria is considered ‘Afro-Cuban’ culture, the government does not bother santeros as they serve its purpose. Marx would call it ‘the opiate of the people,’ offering distraction to Cubans’ difficult daily lives. Santeria has made its accommodation with the Office of Religious Affairs,” said a Catholic scholar.

While Santeria has an accommodation, home churches don’t have an easy path – especially if pastors speak “too loudly.” Christian Solidarity Worldwide has cited the case of Juan Carlos Nunez, a minister in the Apostolic Movement in Las Tunas, who didn’t “keep quiet.” Also mentioned was Bernardo de Quesada, of Camaguey, as examples of religious persecution.

Both men told the Associated Press that churches built in their backyards were demolished by the government because “they were constructed without permits.” Both continue services inside their homes but keep a wary eye. Affirmed Quesada, “I’m not shutting up or leaving.”

Leaving Cuba is another matter, as free-lance journalist and evangelical Yoel Suarez found out. He filed a story abroad on how home churches were gaining traction but displeased someone in the Communist Party’s Office of Religious Affairs.

As a result, he suffered intense interrogation by security forces and is now ‘regulado’ and banned from reporting or travelling to conferences abroad.

On the train to Santa Clara, I met a pastor who concluded, “Two steps forward, one step back. The authorities show a velvet glove to foreign media to hide their fists of steel. Thank the Lord for the Holy Spirit, who leads us forward – Viva Jesús!”

Gracias, hermanos y hermanas de fé, Esteban = stephenemurphyauthor

Credits to: the anonymous priests, pastors, rabbis and nuns who shared their stories with me in Cuba and by other means of communication; Christian Solidarity Worldwide (www.csw.org.uk), the Manchester Guardian, the Associated Press and Wikipedia.

Next week’s blog, August 31: “CUBAN DISSIDENTS, BLOGGERS AND NGO’s”

Formats
book Details
  • 09/2020
  • 9781952483127
  • 296 pages
  • $17.95
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