King of Cuba : a novel

Title:

Author:

García, Cristina, 1958-

Personal Author:

García, Cristina, 1958-

ISBN:

9781476710242

Edition:

1st Scribner hardcover ed.

Publication Information:

New York : Scribner, 2013.

Physical Description:

235 p. ; 22 cm.

Abstract:

A tale told from the alternating viewpoints of an aging Castro-like dictator and a Miami exile obsessed with avenging himself against the dictator for personal betrayals traces the impact of a six-decade revolution on their lives and a homeland that has paid the price of constant violence.

Subject Term:

Dictators -- Cuba -- Fiction.

Exiles -- Florida -- Miami -- Fiction.

Older men -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

Havana (Cuba) -- Fiction.

Miami (Fla.) -- Fiction.

Summary:

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... Main Library	Book	FICTION GARCIA	Searching... Unknown
Searching... West End	Book	FICTION GARCIA	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

Told with wry wit and keen insight, this entertaining and richly satisfying story about a fictionalized Fidel Castro and an octogenarian Cuban exile obsessed with seeking revenge against the dictator--from the National Book Award finalist and author of Dreaming in Cuban .

Vivid and alive, Cristina García's new novel transports readers to Cuba, to Miami, and into the heads of two larger-than-life men--a fictionalized Fidel Castro and an octogenarian Cuban exile obsessed with seeking revenge against the dictator. In King of Cuba, the National Book Award finalist and author of Dreaming in Cuban, writing at the top of her form with humor and humanity, returns to the territory of her homeland.

El Comandante, an aging dictator, shambles about his mansion in Havana, visits a dying friend, tortures hunger strikers in one of his prisons, and grapples with the stale end of his life that is as devoid of grandeur as his nearly sixty-year-old revolution. Across the waters in Florida, Goyo Herrera, a Miami exile in his eighties, plots revenge against his longtime enemy--the very same El Comandante--whom he blames for stealing his beloved, ruining his homeland, and taking his father's life. Herrera would gladly "wear chains on his ankles, chisel stones for his remaining days, even become a goddamn Democrat for the gratification of personally expediting the tyrant's journey back to the Devil, with whom he'd obviously made a pact."

With her masterful twinning of El Comandante and Herrera, along with the rabble of other Cuban voices that combine to create a chorus of history's unofficial stories, García plumbs the passions and realities of these two Cubas--on the island and off--and offers a pulsating story that entertains and illuminates.

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

Fidel Castro contemplates his legacy at the end of his life while a disgruntled Cuban expat plots to hurry that end along. The latest from National Book Awardnominated novelist Garca (Dreaming in Cuban, 1992, etc.) attempts to get inside the head of Castro, who, deep in his 80s, stubbornly clings to the ideals of the revolution while musing on lost loves and past glories. (One well-turned set piece turns on a chintzy musical performed in his honor about the thwarted Bay of Pigs invasion.) Scenes starring Castro alternate with those featuring Goyo, a contemporary of the leader (they attended university at the same time) who's plotting el presidente's assassination for a universe of reasons, including the deaths of his father and brother. Goyo's scheme seems at first like an idle Internet obsession, but when Castro announces plans to speak at the United Nations in New York, Goyo turns serious and plans a road trip. Coming along for the ride is Goyo's drug-addict son, prompting a host of memories of what used to be and what could have been. Castro has similar fixations, which is Garca's point: Though Castro and Goyo live two different lives, their memories and heartbreaks each have a similar resonance. To that end, the style of the book resembles less a thriller than a meditative, lightly comic tale of two lust-fueled men on quixotic journeys. Footnoted asides from Cubans and Cuban expats add some broader perspective to the two men's deeply interior lives, but the book thrives on the intimacy of its leads; in Garca's hands, the insomniac, long-winded, mulishly committed dictator becomes, if not exactly sympathetic, at least entertainingly comprehensible. A clever, well-conceived dual portrait that shows what connects and divides Cubans inside and outside of the island.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.