Melissa read and liked Murray's review of Los Gusanos:

"This is the same John Sayles the director. I saw the book at a book sale for under a dollar and decided I should give it a go just because I love his films but really sort of secretly hoped it wouldn't be very good just because I resent the renaissa...more This is the same John Sayles the director. I saw the book at a book sale for under a dollar and decided I should give it a go just because I love his films but really sort of secretly hoped it wouldn't be very good just because I resent the renaissance types who excell in everything they do. Well, fuck me. It's great.
I'd recently seen the Soderbergh 4 hour film exploration of Che where I had a chance to experience a particular view of the Cuban revolution. Los Gusanos (The Worms) is a cubistic view of Cuba from just prior to the revolution up to around 1990. The centerpiece is the Bay of Pigs disaster known to those involved as The Invasion. The structure is fragmented like a shattered mirror where all shards reflect towards that shameful event in American history.
You meet Marta, the daughter of a former land owner, who lives in Miami in the present tense caring for her dying father and plotting to avenge the death of her poet brother who perished in the invasion. Her story drives the action forward but Sayles uses the back story of each character to create The Island and Miami in a tragic love triangle that will break your heart.
Be warned, John doesn't pull any punches. This is a wonderfully observed but difficult read. The prison sequence was the best I've ever read.
Don't stop making films, John, but keep the novels coming if you have any more like this one in you. (less) "