We chat with author Teresa Dovalpage about The Novel Detective, which is a twisty, genre-bending metafictional mystery set in Cuba past and present about a writer returning to her long-lost hometown to seek the buried truth about two suspicious deaths at her Havana high school, perfect for fans of Chanel Cleeton and Jean Hanff Korelitz
Your protagonist, Teresita, is described as “bespectacled, awkward, and mystery-novel-obsessed.” How much of your own inner nerd did you pour into her?
I would say that almost 100%. The only real exceptions are a few details changed for the sake of the plot, like the circumstances of my move to the US. Otherwise, like Teresita, I was a bookworm growing up in Havana, hiding behind thick eyeglasses. (And like Teresa, the adult version of Teresita, I now happily wear contact lenses.) Back then, while other kids were focused on sports or teenage romances, I was busy reading the exploits of Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple like they were survival guides. In a society where you had to be careful about what you said, being a quiet, observant “nerd” became my superpower. I was nosy and noticed everything, but like my character, I knew when to keep my mouth shut.
Some chapters take place at la escuela al campo (the school in the fields). What was that experience like for a self-proclaimed “mama’s girl” like Teresita… and yourself?
The first time was a complete culture shock. In 1980, these 45-day stints in the countryside picking coffee beans or harvesting bananas were mandatory if you wanted to attend college. My mother packed my wooden suitcase with flannel shirts, condensed milk, and Russian luncheon meat, alongside somewhat exaggerated medical notes about my nearsightedness and flat feet. But for a girl with a way-too-active imagination, the camp was actually a goldmine. It was a rustic world of cold bucket baths, 6:00 AM wake-up calls chanting communist slogans, and stale bread. Yet, away from parental eyes, it was also a hotbed for teenage drama and juicy gossip. It taught me so much about what we used to call the “Truth of Life,” the messy, exciting, and sometimes dangerous world of adults. I had already explored this setting in my novel A Girl Like Che Guevara (Soho Press, 2004), but The Novel Detective allowed me to revisit the camp through a fresher and mystery-driven lens.
Would you say that “a mystery lens” is a good vehicle for exploring history and personal memory?
Absolutely. Mysteries are all about hunting for clues to find the truth… what we often do when we look back at our own pasts and reflect on them. By combining the skills and mindsets of the adult novelist Teresa and the teenage “four-eyes” Teresita, I was able to view Havana through two different lenses. One perspective is shaped by youthful and awkward innocence while the other is filtered through forty years of living in the United States, speaking, thinking, and writing in a language that isn’t my mother tongue. Fiction allowed me to hand the teenage girl’s secret notes over to the adult novelist, solving a fictional mystery while having fun rewriting my own history.
The book contrasts Havana in 1980 with Havana in 2020. Your middle school, La Manzana de Gómez, is now a five-star luxury hotel. What was it like confronting that change in real life?
It felt like being a lost time traveler. In 1980, La Manzana was a crumbling, giant beast of a building. It smelled of dust, cockroaches, and rancid elevator oil, and the staircases served as “tunnels of love” where my classmates snuck away to neck. When I returned in 2022 to visit my mother, La Manzana had undergone a multi-million-dollar facelift. The lobby smelled of lavender, it had new chrome elevators, and there wasn’t a bug in sight. Instead of uniformed students and haggard teachers, the place was filled with well-dressed tourists. It was disconcerting, to say the least. A building that belonged to the public when I was a kid now charges hundreds of dollars a night, an impossible amount for the average Cuban. That contrast became the emotional anchor of the novel’s dual timeline.
