Los Gusanos: A Novel - Softcover

If the U.S. were to boast one great independent film director, he would be John Sayles, a cult figure among his admirers. Nominated for both an Academy Award for scriptwriting and a National Book Award, Sayles has written screenplays, teleplays, short stories, and novels and has worked as a script doctor for a virtual who's who of Hollywood film and television talent.

In the early 1980s, Marta de la Pena, a beautiful, otherworldly Cuban exile living in Miami, dreams of avenging the death of her brother Ambrosio, who was killed in the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion 20 years earlier. Spurned by the mainstream anti-Castro groups in town, Marta sets out to assemble her own guerrilla strike force from Miami's large population of gun-toting idealists, madmen, and soldiers of fortune. Sayles, a noted film director ( Eight Men Out ) as well as a critically acclaimed novelist ( Union Dues , LJ 9/1/77), brings a cinematic eye to historical fiction. Focusing on the vicissitudes of Marta's extended family in both Havana and Miami, he reviews 50 years of Cuban-American relations. An exciting, instructive, and highly readable novel. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/1/91.
- Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch. Lib., Los Angeles
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.