The Tilting House
Ivonne’s new novel, The Tilting House, tells the story of an adolescent girl, Yuri Vilar, who lives in Havana during the country’s worst economic crisis. In 1993, Yuri meets Mariela, a Cuban American artist returning to the island for the first time. Mariela claims to be Yuri’s sister, separated all these years due to family and political upheavals. Through Yuri’s fraught relationship with Mariela (in Havana, in NYC, in Miami, and back in Havana when Yuri briefly returns alone in 2015), the novel explores the losses and gains incurred in the process of migration, and the complexities of grief, identity, betrayal, nationhood, and family ties.
Coming July 22, 2025
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“The Tilting House is a brilliant study of the unstable ground that supports the story of exile. Through the lives of two half-sisters, Yuri and Mariela, this sweeping novel exposes the shifting foundations of identity and belonging. As the sisters confront their multiple shared losses – of mother and mother-land – their paths diverge in ways that mark them forever. Mariela’s art confronts us with the destruction that is the handmaiden of creation. While Yuri’s voice, vibrating with ambivalence, guides us through the ruins of a family whose story becomes the story of a nation. This nuanced, gorgeous novel dares question not only the idea of return, but the very concept of a home that stands ever ready to receive us. Unforgettable.”
Ana Menéndez, author of The Apartment
"A jewel of a book. As vibrant as the brightly-painted houses in the Havana at its heart, The Tilting House immerses us in a sweeping narrative of generational trauma and beauty, yet draws us close with prose that sparkles and characters that won't let go."
Jessica Elisheva Emerson, author of Olive Days
"The Tilting House is a lyrical, haunting exploration of exile and belonging, memory and betrayal, and the inescapable pull of family and legacy. Against the backdrop of a Cuba still reckoning with the upheaval of revolution, Ivonne Lamazares crafts a story of love and loss, following the unforgettable Yuri—a young woman caught between the ghosts of history and the promise of an uncertain future. With exquisite prose and unflinching insight, The Tilting House introduces a cast of exiles and dreamers, survivors and schemers, artists and agitators, all bound by the weight of the past and the search for home in a world forever shaped by destiny."
Alex Espinoza, author of The Sons of El Rey
Praise for The Tilting House
About Ivonne
Ivonne Lamazares was born in Havana, and at the age of thirteen, left Cuba and settled in Miami, Florida. Her first novel, The Sugar Island (Houghton Mifflin), was translated to seven languages. Her short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Latina Magazine, The Southern Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Florida Review, A Century of Cuban Writers in Florida, Grabbed: Poets & Writers on Sexual Assault, Empowerment & Healing, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of an NEA and three Florida Individual Artist Fellowships. She lives in Miami with her husband, poet Steve Kronen.