Aaron Hamburger's "Hotel Cuba"

Aaron Hamburger is the author of a story collection titled The View from Stalin’s Head which was awarded the Rome Prize by the American Academy of Arts and Letters and nominated for a Violet Quill Award. He has also written three novels: Faith for Beginners, nominated for a Lambda Literary Award, Nirvana Is Here, winner of a Bronze Medal from the 2019 Foreword Reviews Indies Book Awards, and Hotel Cuba.

Here Hamburger dreamcasts an adaptation of Hotel Cuba:

I think my novel Hotel Cuba is wonderfully cinematic. It’s the story of two sheltered Russian Jewish sisters, desperate to find refuge in America after the Russian Revolution, who find themselves trapped in the sultry, hedonistic world of 1920s Havana.

Perhaps in a different political climate, the movie could actually be filmed in Havana, to capture the atmosphere of the tropical setting, and the heat and the light, combined with the gorgeous Baroque architecture of Old Town. Since this is a fantasy, I would have the Merchant Ivory team direct and produce the movie, in the style of A Room with a View or Howards End, with their frequent collaborator, the novelist Ruth Prawer Jhabvala writing an elegant and literary screenplay. I can imagine a lush and lyrical soundtrack, and lovely period costumes to evoke 1922 Cuba, with the American tourists dressed in cream-colored linen suits or pale dusty pink and pistachio green flowing dresses. My heroine, Pearl, is a seamstress and aspiring designer who would have loved being a costume designer for the film!

To play Pearl, I would want a dark-haired actress who projects an inner intelligence and strength, perhaps Oscar winner Rachel Weisz, who like Pearl happens to be Jewish. And then her husband Daniel Craig could play the mercurial Alexander, a dashing, debonair Jewish-American expatriate who may be helping Pearl, or may be wooing her. As Pearl’s impulsive and romantic younger sister Frieda, I could see Florence Pugh from the movie Little Women. For Ben the Oak, another of Pearl’s love interests, I might choose Adam Driver, who can play a strong, silent type who’s also a bit awkward.

Finally, I would have to find a part for Keanu Reeves just because I love Keanu Reeves. He could have a cameo as the American Counsel in Cuba, a glad-handing cynic, though maybe in all honesty, a Gene Hackman might be better suited to the role.

Visit Aaron Hamburger's website.

The Page 69 Test: Hotel Cuba.

--Marshal Zeringue