Captain of the Sleepers

by Mayra Montero, Edith Grossman (Translator)

From the author of The Last Night I Spent With You comes "a captivating tale of love, politics, and death" ( The Charlotte Observer )

For fifty years, Andrés Yasin has carried a grudge against J. T. Bunker. Now eighty-three-years-old and dying, Bunker wants to tell his side of the story, the story of his affair with Estela, Andrés's mother. As a child Andrés knew Bunker as the "Captain of the Sleepers"--so called because he transported back to Vieques those who had died on the mainland but wished to be buried at home. But what really happened between Bunker and Estela, and between Estela and her one true love, a leader of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Movement? What did Andrés witness, and what were the real circumstances of his mother's mysterious death?

Beautifully translated by Edith Grossman, Captain of the Sleepers is a startling tale of remembrance and reality, and Mayra Montero's finest book yet.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, 21st Century, Literary Fiction, Spanish Literature, Latin American, Drama

192 pages, Paperback

Published January 23, 2007

About the author

Well-known Cuban-Puerto Rican author and columnist.

Reviews

[Jim Fonseca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here is a story set in an unusual locale: the island of Vieques, one of the Spanish Virgin islands, off the coast of Puerto Rico. The title comes from a name given to an America pilot who has the unusual occupation of flying dead folks from mainland Puerto Rico back to their home island for burial.



The story is mainly focused on the coming of age of a young boy and his vague awareness of his parents’ role in the ill-fated Puerto Rican independence movement of the 1970’s. We also see his parents' dissolving marriage through his eyes and a tragedy involving his mother.



The book is translated from the Spanish. The author is a Puerto Rican journalist who was born in Cuba and moved with her family to Puerto Rico as a young girl.

Top photo from vifreepress.com
Bottom photo from thedawn-news.org

[Mar · Rating 3 out of 5]

-Adult
-Historical fiction, psychological drama, tragic “romance”
-October 1950 in Vieques: Andrés, a 12‑year‑old boy, faces a double tragedy — his mother’s death + a nationalist uprising involving his father. 
-John Timothy Bunker, the aviator Andrés named the “Captain of the Sleepers,” meets Andrés fifty years later in Santa Cruz to confront past… stuff. 
-The narrative shifts between Andrés and John, giving dual perspectives but sometimes confusing if you’re not paying full attention. 
-The pacing is solid at the start. We get a lot of intrigue, a Caribbean atmosphere, tragedy, secrets. 
-But mid‑book, the narrative ambiguity and too much introspection made me yawn. Sometimes it felt like reading poetic reflections that don’t push the story forward. 
-The characters have good moments: guilt, remorse, memory. But some side characters feel undercooked (serving more as devices for revelations). And honestly, I don’t think I liked any of them.
-The Caribbean setting, the political tension, the melancholia But it leans too much toward “I’ll say something profound” that doesn’t always fully land.
-The ending is symbolic, somewhat conclusive but not entirely neat. It leaves you thinking but also with threads untied.
-Highlight quote: “An ancient passion that refers to death, and that only from death can be understood and forgiven.” 
-There’s not much overt action; most of it is internal monologue, memory, the burden of silence.
-It’s not a “typical” romance: more like a damaged passion dragging in guilt and time. I didn’t like it, it felt… hideous for me:
-I didn’t fall in love with it, but I didn’t hate it either. It’s the kind of book you love if you like melancholy, hate if you want something more concrete.
-Also, a little bit more of historical context would have been nice.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

The central characters, the mother, father, and son, and J.T., the Captain, exist in a ven diagram, with memories, experiences, emotions and loyalties that overlap among and between them. But what the book really speaks to are those solitary planes where the family and their close friend share no common ground. The four of them are pressed apart by misfortunes and disappointments, to the very edges of isolation, but they are still bound together by all that they did share. Mayra Montero hints constantly at who is missing from a scene, who is coming and going, where one person's knowledge and understanding leaves off to be picked up by someone else. The idea of this collective memory and the sacrifices that each character makes to preserve it is central. I wanted a clearer picture of the time period, though. Political unrest drives the plot, but it wasn't explained clearly enough to justify the characters' motivations.

[Oscar Lye · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moody and complex. The Captain of the Sleepers is one of the most profound explorations of memory that I have ever read. The scene was set beautifully throughout the entirety of this book, Vieques was a setting that really resonated with me

It was so good!!!

[Maggie · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5
This was a required read for my Latin English course. I was intrigued from page one. I wanted to know why Andres despised the Captain so much and what he did to his mother. We got to see the political climate of Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rican National Movement.
The book had me wanting to continuously reading. And it took a turn I definitely did not expect. Overall I’m happy I read this one.

[Amanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is one of those books that is the remnant of some literature course from long ago and has been sitting on my bookshelf for a number of years. Having forgotten much of the plot and my ultimate verdict on it, I decided to revisit Captain Of The Sleepers to see if it was worth continuing to keep on said shelf.

Overall, the story itself was foreboding and mercurial. The ominous sentiment of looming gloom colored every action and interaction within the novel. Though initially intriguing, Montero stretched these devices to their limit, rendering the plot palpably stagnant as a result of their overuse. There was no plot-driven impetus for the deplorable secret (alluded to relatively early on) to be revealed. Thus, instead of cultivating page-turning intrigue for the reader, there came a time when I was just desperate to get it over with and have the enigmatic secret revealed to me.

Montero grapples with a number of themes in Captain Of The Sleepers: death/"sleepers," shifting child-adult dynamics and relationships, necrophilia, Oedipal complexes, the exactitude of memory, revolution. Of these I would say the insurrection theme surrounding Puerto Rico's failed revolution was among the most intriguing, though it only served as the backdrop for the Yasin Family's respective deceptions and skeletons. I applauded Montero's portrayal of a child's perception (Andres') of adult situations juxtaposed with that of an adult (the Captain). The manner in which the Captain constantly condescends and discounts the accuracy of Andres' memories (p.126) is a recurring theme in and of itself.

Montero is an effective and engaging storyteller, but in the end (literally and figuratively, especially with regard to the novel's final line) The Captain Of The Sleepers fell flat for me.


Noteworthy lines and passages:

"She gave me some of the sweet she was preparing as our Christmas Eve dessert: it was a custard with tears. My mother called the drops of lemon juice she squeezed over it "tears," and they were slow as they ran down the sides of the custard, slow and tremulous, as if something were hurting the dessert." (p.14)

"...but they'd said something that was still floating in the air. Something that in some way was crushing them and in passing hit me in the chest, as if I'd been struck by the tail of an invisible fish." (p.18)

"...I saw them both through the gloom caused by the mask, a color that was like a presentiment." (p.21)

"It was a summery October, with air thick as marmalade." (p.138)

"The dream seemed like nonsense to her, but later she understood that sleepers, at a desolate point in the night, cross paths in their flight with the dead." (p.175)

[Angie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I purchased this book because it is set on the Island of Vieques where I live. I was hoping to get a further look at the people of Vieques, although set in a work of fiction, and of the place. And to an extent, the book fulfilled that interest, mentioning places I've been on the island and talking about a culture and what people did to survive. The politics become interesting as the main cast of characters are involved in the independence movement, but there is the complication of choosing to die for country or to live for family, while in the middle of that, there is a complicated love triangle. All of this related from the point of view of an old man and his flashback child self.

Reading this book also improved my Spanish vocabulary without being grammatically too difficult to read. Had I looked up more words, perhaps I'd have had a better understanding of the plot, but I'll be honest, I just wanted to get through the plot as I wasn't in any way interested in the love triangle, the politics or the shenanigans of the main character as a child, probably because as it was presented from the main ptv of the child and children are often clueless as to what is going on, there was a serious lack of detail.

Then there was this deep horrible secret that the whole plot hinged upon and when I got to it at the very end, I frankly wasn't shocked, simply because I was bored. I felt like the deep horrible secret was a really bad piece of gossip and would have liked to know more about the politics or the people and less about the main character's hate for a man he at one time loved.

[Greta · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Captain of the Sleepers is an American pilot who makes deliveries and pick-ups among the islands of the Caribbean. Through the eyes of a young boy, we learn the story of his family and how this pilot becomes an essential part of the Puerto Rican Nationalist movement. Life is challenging as native dwellers of the Islands who are frightened by the politics of their day.

[Laura Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best book I read in 2017.

[Michele Dubois · Rating 3 out of 5]

A disturbing and ugly story. The writing is very good, though.

[Matthew Cramer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mayra Montero crea una historia complicada de una familia, una isla, y un movimiento nacionalista que se centra en la pequeña isla de Vieques Puerto Rico. El libro empieze con el primer narrador Andrés Yasín regresando a Vieques unos cincuenta años despues de los eventos centrales al libro. Está regresando para hablar con el segundo narrador y el orígen del título, John Timothy Bunker, también conocido como “El Capitán de los Dormidos”. El regreso de Andrés es para finalmente discutir algo con El Capitán, algo que pasó cuando era un niño en la isla, algo horrible que ha permancido con Andrés por tóda su vida, lo que pasó no sabemos, y poco a poco aprendemos sobre el misterio, pero la autora hace un trabajo excellente de mantener el misterio hasta las ultimas paginas del libro. A través de las conversaciones y memorias de ambos narradores vamos viajando al pasado de Vieques y Puerto Rico, hasta los años de los 1950 cuando el movimiento de independencia puertorriqueña estaba entrando en conflictos armados con el gobierno de los Estados Unidos. Conocemos a los padres de Andrés y aprendemos sobre las relaciones extramaritales de la familia Yasín y los enlaces complicados de la época.
La autora usa varios temas para intensificar su mensaje. Toda la novela está envuelta en la muerte, con imagénes poderosas de perros ahorcados por sus dueños y tortugas estalladas por las accionés de la marina de guerra estadounidense. La muerte está junto con el sexo por la duración de la trama, mucho de la narración de Andrés tiene que ver con su maduración sexual y sus relaciones extrañas con una niña mayor del pueblo. Las relaciones sexuales de sus padres y especialmente su mamá tambien fomenta esté tema. El estilo de la autora es artistico y bello, pero tambien frio y oscuro, y despues de cada capitulo sientes un poco peor sobre las stiuaciones de los personajes.
En resúmen El Capitán de los Dormidos es una novela ambiciosa y de gran éxito, pero lo que alcanza es un nivel de desesperación y miseria que deja al lector deprimido y desalusionado de haber leido la novela en primer lugar. No es una historia para un lector que quiere una novela divertida o felíz, sino un lector que quiera ser sumergido en la sordidez del Puerto Rico de la época, y la familia rota en su centro.

[Kat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Over the past few years, I haven't felt like I've had the attention span to read novels, except when visiting Puerto Rico once a year for a week or so. A couple years ago I read and enjoyed Dancing to "Almendra": A Novel on that annual trip, and decided to move from a Cuban story to a Viequense story by the same author.

One aspect of Montero's writing I've noticed (envied?) is her easy way of narrating from a male perspective. To tell this story, she floats among three different male perspectives: the main narrator as a young boy and, later, as a late-middle-aged man, and his old mentor-turned-nemesis as a dying man. All seem convincing to me, but then again I'm a chick.

I enjoyed the book more as it turned darker and darker, and the ending is darkest still. It seemed a bit lightweight at first and opened into something startling, which I like, in a sick sort of way. If you're interested in a Vieques novel with a dark little sexual coming-of-age story attached, go for it.

[Djrmel · Rating 4 out of 5]

- The sense of place is perfect for a summer read - the story takes place mostly on the island of Vieques, with tropical breezes, sun filled descriptions of beaches and island villages, and a real feeling of the lethargy that hits in those kinds of environs. But there's a lot going on emotionally with all the characters, if you're willing to follow the non-linear story telling and keep track of how the two different points of view reveal the same past.

[Raúl Naveda López-Padilla · Rating 2 out of 5]

Con mucha dificultad encontré vetas de una historia que me atrajera desde el principio.
Si bien no es mala historia, creo que carece de elementos clave para atraer al lector a las historias personales de Andrés, el Capitán, Frank, Roberto, Estela y los demás personajes

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is depressing in an absolutely gorgeous way.

[Daniella · Rating 3 out of 5]

the translator is well known for being really good, and she most recently translated the newest edition of love in the time of cholera

[NatalyaVqs · Rating 1 out of 5]

I valiantly struggled through this one since it's set in Vieques where I chose to make my home; but it's way too esoteric for me, I cared not what all the mystery was building up to