In The Apartment, author Ana Menéndez invites readers into Apartment 2B in The Helena, an art deco building in South Miami Beach, Florida. Apartment 2B has been home to many residents over the years, and each of them has a story to tell. So, too, does the apartment itself. Spanning decades, the chapters of The Apartment offer insight into the changing landscape of Miami, generally, and The Helena, in particular, but, more importantly, they suggest the ways that people create homes and foster community.
At times, The Apartment reads more like a short story collection than a novel, but some of the stories are more closely connected than others. Several of the chapters have been previously published, either as short stories or as novel excerpts, in anthologies and other publications, including The New England Review, Home in Florida: Latinx Writers and the Literature of Uprootedness and Let’s Hear Their Voices: Cuban American Writers of the Second Generation, among others. Each chapter addresses exile, homesickness or displacement in some fashion, and ultimately, the residents of The Helena strive for a type of community, flawed though it may be.
The first chapter is Sophie’s in 1942. The Helena is new and exciting. Sophie and her husband arrive when the building is not quite complete and World War II looms in the near future. Sophie’s chapter is brief but evocative. It showcases Menéndez’s skill in the short story form as she quickly engages readers with the characters and setting. With the setting established, we shift our attention to a future resident, Eugenio in 1963. Eugenio is a concert pianist from Cuba who often plays for residents of a nursing home nearby. A series of other brief, vignette-like chapters follow, each with engaging characters with whom many readers will want to spend more time.
Longer chapters begin to appear about halfway through the book. Beatrice, 2002, lives with her boyfriend, Ignacio, and his wife, Maribel, while they wait out “the time required by law” so that Ignacio can get a green card. With 9/11 in recent memory, Ignacio’s anxiety about the interview with an immigration officer is intense and complicates the living situation. This chapter is interesting for a variety of reasons, but most noticeable is that it seems to be named for the person least involved in the events of the chapter. While the outcome of the story undoubtedly affects Beatrice, the narration seems to focus on Ignacio instead.
This shift in narrative focus recurs in later chapters as the name assigned to the chapter becomes a less-clear indicator of the chapter’s focus. Early in the book, chapter names are clearly aligned with the primary character in that chapter. However, once readers pass the Beatrice chapter, things become more complex and more communal. When The Helena changes to a building of condos, Pilar, 2010, purchases one of them, but, following the 2008 financial crisis, she is forced to move back home with her parents. She decides to rent out Apartment 2B. At this point, the building manager, cleaners and a real estate agent make brief appearances. Lenin, 2011, has a chapter named for him, but he never appears alive on the page. Instead, Lenin haunts the story of Lana, 2012.
Lana’s chapter is the longest and most complex. With Lana, we meet several other residents of The Helena, and we learn more of the apartment’s history — including what happened to Lenin. While the real estate agent “does not believe in ghosts,” she does light a sage candle while preparing for the next tenant, and The Apartment becomes a ghost story in its second half. Lenin’s presence is distinctive in this final section, but other former residents also seem to affect Lana’s experience of the building. Other residents — living and dead — reach out to her and welcome her. In part, they feel guilty about Lenin, but their efforts to invite her into their community are sincere.
The Apartment does not offer a clear narrative structure. Some chapters are interconnected while others appear to stand on their own, and many remain unresolved. For some readers, the secrets and subtleties may be too opaque. Overall, though, The Apartment is an enjoyable read due to its vivid characters and carefully crafted prose. By the end, readers will probably want to know about who lived in their own homes before them. What would it be like to trace the residency? What kinds of communities might we build if we included not only those around us, but also those who came before us?
FICTION
The Apartment
By Ana Menéndez
Counterpoint Press
Published June 27, 2023
Southern Review of Books 