False War by Carlos Manuel Alvarez review a new vision of migration

"Carlos Manuel Alvarez's second novel is a hugely rewarding, polyphonic narrative of migration from Cuba. Through its characters' rich and eccentric interior worlds, it gives articulation to people whose lives are often reduced to stereotypes and offers a new vision of migration. False War is comprised mostly of 13 interconnected storylines, which alternate irregularly in short episodes. The stories have different timelines and vary significantly in their portrayals of an array of characters, many from Havana, a city of many stray sadnesses."

"Characters struggle to understand the trajectories of their lives, the currents they are moving with or against, the plots they've fallen into or that have been planted in them. The line also speaks to the novel's structure more generally, as connections between the stories and their sometimes overlapping characters emerge slowly and unexpectedly, combining genre modes and confounding conventions of plot. False War doesn't dwell on dangerous passages, precarious border crossings, struggles of integration, or detention."

False War comprises 13 interconnected storylines that alternate irregularly in short episodes and employ different timelines. The narrative centers on richly drawn characters, many from Havana, whose interior worlds are eccentric, meandering, and revealing. Themes of exile, return, and the sense that plots are planted in lives recur as motifs shaping characters' perceptions of trajectory and stuckness. The novel sidesteps conventional depictions of perilous crossings or detention while acknowledging migrant violences. The narrative power arises from close attention to impulses, obsessions, everyday details, and psychological borders that separate people more than geography does.

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