Book excerpt: The twin protagonists of Mangos, Bananas and Coconuts emerge from the lush tropics of the Cuban countryside like Caribbean Tristans and Isoldes, bound to each other in an eternal embrace that neither politics nor geography, nor the ill-will of family and society can break. Like so many timeless tales, Mangos, Bananas and Coconuts begins with the love of a man and a woman from opposite ends of the social strata and rises to mythic proportions as their newly born twins are separated at birth. The son is raised in wealth and privilege in the affluent exile community of Florida; the daughter and her father scratch out a living in New YorkÍs Spanish Harlem. In spite of the realistically portrayed social and economic differences in their upbringing, destiny and all of the forces of fate and chance conspire to bring together the twin protagonists in an ingenious and sincerely amorous embrace. The four elements of nature„earth, wind, fire, and water„all participate in this magically real world, where their parentsÍ mystical union has lead to a quest for a second and more fulfilled and transcendent one.