Sharing a hot night with a giant hammerhead shark; marching to protest the Dictator Batista; leading classmates to safety through the smoke and terror of a bomb, the world Liana Fernandez de Castro grew up in was violent and often terrifying, but this daughter of a distinguished old Spanish-Cuban family still found time to recognize, value and delineate a whole gallery of characters who vary from fascinating to uproarious. Praxedes, the charming entrepreneur who stood the fable of the ant and the grasshopper on its head; Elena, the sullen Galician who returned evil for good, undone by the...