Three Women in Exile Ache for Cuba in “The Eternal Forest” https://ift.tt/i90Taqx
What is memory? Is it a vision from the past, a story passed down from generation to generation, or a tug on the heart, drawing us back in time? Whatever shape it takes, a memory is something that lingers with us for a lifetime, reminding us of something in our past. But what happens when we yearn for memories that are not actually our own?
Elena Sheppard’s memoir The Eternal Forest is a compelling meditation on these questions. Beautifully crafted, the memoir follows three generations of Sheppard’s family in exile from Cuba. As the family flees the political turmoil of the Cuban Revolution, settles in Miami, and eventually builds a life in New York City, Sheppard ponders the omnipresent aching for the homeland that was never her own.
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. Her prose, coupled with the vignette structure of the memoir, reads like an excavation of memory, an unearthing of its fragmented yet enduring nature. The result is a work that captures the Cuban diaspora, inviting readers to feel nostalgia for a past they never lived.
At its heart, The Eternal Forest is a story about women: “Girls learning from women, to become women no matter how far the world flings them from home.”
In a historical tradition that often revolves around the deeds of men, Sheppard turns our attention to the quiet strength and enduring legacy of three women: Rosita, her grandmother; Margarita, her mother; and Elena herself. Together, they form the backbone of the memoir — their lives, choices, and memories serving as a necessary part of Cuba’s past and present.
Sheppard cleverly intertwines the personal narratives of these women with major events in Cuban history. Through their eyes, we witness the upheaval of a nation during the Cuban Revolution led by Fidel Castro and the subsequent flight of more than one million Cubans to the United States. In lyrical prose Sheppard explores the revolution’s impact on her family, specifically how it reshaped the trajectory of their lives, scattering their memories across oceans and decades:
My life, like it or not, is tangled up in his. Without Fidel, there would be no revolution. Without him, my family wouldn’t have left. Without him, there would be no Rosita in a Miami rocking chair, no Mariana etched in stone, no girl stretched out in the Florida Room looking for answers to the ache that surrounds her family.
Inspired by a line from José Martí’s Versos Sencillos, Sheppard draws on Cuba’s rich literary heritage to frame her exploration of heritage and memory: “A mí denme el bosque eterno / Give me the eternal forest.” This endless forest hovers over every page, shaping the story’s terrain. As Sheppard explores her family’s memories, weighing them with her own, the forest becomes a symbol of an elusive past where stories live, history breathes, and identity is both lost and found. In this way, The Eternal Forest transcends memoir, and Sheppard forges her own path to create a narrative that is wholly original.
Ultimately, this memoir reminds us of the steadfast power of memory. In a celebration of the oral and written tradition of passing down stories from one generation to the next, The Eternal Forest preserves what might otherwise be forgotten:
We are the tales they tell the next generation; we are the relics waiting to be uncovered by our grandchildren in boxes under the bed, or by a future archaeologist wondering how a civilization fell and finding just enough charred clues to know there was a fire.
Sheppard is that archaeologist, and The Eternal Forest is her excavation, an exquisite reflection on the enduring power of stories. Her findings are bound up in this book, offered to readers as an artifact worth keeping.
The Eternal Forest
By Elena Sheppard
St. Martin’s Press
Published September 30, 2025
0 Commentaires