Birthday Parties in Heaven: Thoughts on Love, Life, Grief, and Other Matters of the Heart

by Ana Veciana-Suarez

Overview

In this collection of eloquent and moving essays, Ana Veciana-Suarez explores many of the topics closest to our hearts. In “Stitchwork,” she expresses her mixed feelings about a mother who devotes all of her attention to her family. In the title essay, she examines, with unflinching honesty, the loss of her first husband, then gives us a humorous and compelling account of her remarriage in “Second Time Around.” Veciana-Suarez offers wise reflections on everything from the bond between sisters to the anxiety of swimsuit shopping season. By turns witty and big-hearted, poignant and defiant, these essays open a door to the ways one woman and her extended family cope with both the joys and heartbreaks of life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781504021852
Publisher:	Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
Publication date:	11/10/2015
Pages:	177
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Ana Veciana-Suarez is a syndicated columnist at the Miami Herald. The author of several books, she lives in Miami with her family. Visit her at www.anavecianasuarez.com and follow her on Twitter @AnaVeciana.

Table of Contents

My Lowly Thatched Cottage
My Father, Mi Papi
Stitchwork
Ritual and Refrain: Scenes of a Miami Summer
Sisters
Beisbol Dreams
"Wait Until You Have Children"
Birthday Parties in Heaven
Cellulite, Schmellulite
Second Time Around
Bugs in My Teeth
The Religion of Love
Small Tomatoes
Through the Valley of the Shadow of Death
Biscayne Bay
Open Letter to My Son (As He Leaves for College)
Moving Up, Moving On

Editorial Reviews

"Veciana-Suarez has managed to retain an ability to view her culture with the crisp impressions perceived only by the newcomer or the very young.” —Library Journal
 
“Veciana-Suarez is a wise, honest, and astonishingly perceptive writer who looks at every life and finds gentle humor and truth.” —Dave Barry, Pulitzer Prize–winning author and columnist

From the Publisher

The author is not exaggerating when she includes love, life, and grief in her title, for this collection of essays touches--no, presses upon--each of these topics. Veciana-Suarez's family emigrated from Cuba during the early Castro era and settled in Miami. But the book goes beyond any mere political stereotypes to describe complex family relationships: the mutual devotion between a strong-spirited daughter and a politically active father, the author's mixed emotions toward a mother who is totally dedicated to family, and the sibling love and rivalry she feels for the sister she is closest to in age. Not afraid to reveal highly charged emotional situations, Veciana-Suarez (a syndicated columnist for the Miami Herald and author of the novel The Chin Kiss King) gives an honest, unflinching account of life after the loss of her first husband, compelling compassion with skillful writing that forbids bathos or pity. In turn, she uplifts spirits with a thoughtful yet humorous account of her second marriage--he is Jewish, she is Catholic--and her wonderful vignettes on beisbol ("baseball"). Veciana-Suarez has managed to retain an ability to view her culture with the crisp impressions perceived only by the newcomer or the very young. Recommended for all public libraries.--Nedra C. Evers, Sacramento P.L., CA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal