Volume 3, No. 19 April 11, 2003
‘Waiting’ for perfect prose A Review By Beth E. Concepción Savannah College of Art and Design students visited Cuba June 2001 in the college’s first-ever off-campus program to the island. Photos the students took while there prove that progress virtually stopped when Fidel Castro took over in 1959. It is like a scene out of a movie with all those 1950s American cars rumbling through potholed streets. According to Carlos Eire, author of “Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy,” hardly anyone thought Castro would be in power for more than a few years, let alone more than 40. Eire’s memoirs tell of the years he spent as a boy in Cuba before he was airlifted off the island in 1962 at the age of 11 along with 14,000 other Cuban children as part of Operation Pedro Pan. Eire made America his home and has been very successful, earning a Ph.D. at Yale University in 1979. He is now the T. Lawrason Riggs Professor of History and Religious Studies at Yale. In the book’s acknowledgements, Eire writes, “I started writing it [the book] on the last day of spring term 2000, with no plan or outline, or any idea of how long it would take to finish.” That lack of focus is fairly clear in the book, not that it is a necessarily a bad thing. “Waiting for Snow in Havana” seems to spill out of Eire. The passages go back and forth in time, from his early years “flash forward” (his words) to his current life with his wife and three kids, then back again to when he and his brother finally were reunited with their mother in Chicago. Though this method makes for difficult reading at times, it is authentic in that this is how memories tend to appear: jumbled and without structure. Eire, who says this is his “first book without footnotes” (having written previously about 16th century Europe and the history of Christianity), paints a vivid portrait of the “lizard-shaped” island, though he does tend to favor certain phrases. For example, the setting sun, parrot fish and his Connecticut mailbox are all “iridescent tangerine.” His prose often makes its mark. In reference to a speech by Castro, Eire writes, “The words bounced off my ears and fell to the ground mortally wounded, gasping for meaning.” That’s nice, unique and creative. There are many selling points to the novel and most of his childhood stories are interesting (to more than just family members, as is the case with many memoirs). One more draft with an eye toward streamlining might have made “Waiting for Snow in Havana” just about perfect.
Home | Accolades | What’s the Buzz | Art and About | The Reel Deal Book Marks | On the Safe Side | The Bee Line | Classifieds | Contact the Chronicle | Chronicle Archives