Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy

I was always interested in Operation Peter Pan that brought the Cuban children/refugees to the states. So when I saw it on a sale table, I had to have it. The story is true, written by the author. I also read another of his books; they are in order but don’t necessarily have to be read in order. Both books were fascinating. funny and informative. And if you've ever been to Havana, you'll recognize many of the locations in the book (per my friend from Havana).

Our family luckily escaped from Castrolandia when I was 10 years old in 1967. We came to the USA with nothing but a change of clothes and settled in California. I relate well and empathize with many of the stories and experiences stated in this book. Noteworthy in reading some of the reviews is a popular misconception in the USA that pre-Castro Cuba was a land of the very few rich and the rest mostly poor. This is belied by the fact that, like Carlos in this book, most of the over one-million Cubans that have escaped Castrolandia came from the middle-class, although Carlos’s immediate family lived in an upper-middle class neighborhood in Havana. Carlos is an excellent writer. I much enjoyed reading this and the Learning to Die in Miami book as well. Both are page-turners. Highly recommend. Bravo Carlos!

This is the biography of a young Havana privileged lad whose life was altered by the assumption of control by the Castro regime and his subsequent life in the United States. However, it is not written in chronological order. While he bounces back and forth between his life in Havana and the later life in the U.S., it is written so well, the transitions seem appropriate. The prose is excellent; his command of the language he learned secondly is outstanding An after-the-fact welcome to author Eire. You have enhanced and bettered the country of your adoption.

Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy, by Carlos Eire, Free Press, part of Simon and Schuster, NY, NY, 2003. ISBN 0-7432-4641-1 (paperback), 387 pp.Eire gives us a personal insight into the way another person, or another culture, sees contemporary history. If we saw him walking down the street we would have no idea this Yale professor was a pulsating mass of emotions, fears, contradictions. My brain does not work the way his does but the book remind us of critical differences.Eire weaves two separate historical lines: his glorious childhood in Havana, the fall of Batista, the rise of Fidel Castro, and the consequences of his mother's decision to send him and his older brother Tony to the U.S. Eire's life in Havana was both tremendously scary and tremendously exciting. His Tom Sawyer childhood, translucent and marvelous, burgeoned with childhood fears: lizards, the crucified Christ, dreams, confession, bad words, dirty magazines, the fear of becoming black, that run on endlessly.The leit motif is abandonment, specifically God abandoning Christ, something Eire's own father would never do, until he did, and their abandoning Cuba. Eire's choosing his mother's last name was, like his other emotions, based on a contradiction: He did it ostensibly 'so that it (his mother's name) could be the name I would pass on to my children", not so that he could erase the name his father left him (hence abandoning him in turn). Eire's statement "I knew that he would be proud of me for doing it" conflicts with what else he tells us about his father: treasuring history, recalling his past lives, especially as Louis XIV, and enjoying the precious memorabilia he had collected. And then Eire says changing names was "as right as taking an urchin off the street and adopting him".Ironically Eire shows changing his name is as unacceptable as his father's adoption of his brother, Ernesto. His father acted without asking anyone and so has Eire. His father changed the dynamics of the family with that adoption and so has Eire changed his relationship with his family. If his father can say something unacceptable is acceptable than Eire can do it too. Eire is a man who doesn't recognize that he has still not/not/not forgiven his father. He has not forgiven his father for adopting a pervert, for not protecting him from Ernesto, for recognizing the harm Castro would bring and doing nothing, for refusing to send his children to the U.S., for failing to join his family in the U.S.Tony, the older brother, does not fare well in the U.S. Perhaps it is the loss of country, friends and family, perhaps his learning of the torture and death of their cousin Fernando for fighting Castro that propels his unhappiness. Perhaps it is undiagnosed depression acting out in multiple acts of macho bravado, and a carelessness in tending his diabetic conditionI found 'Snow' an excellent book not because I liked the man in particular but because it generated so much to think about.

I was born in 1987. I came to the US in 2014. This book was banned in Cuba. I only discovered it here, after visiting a museum in Miami. I gave me the perspective of a Cuba I did not know. I grew up when the brainwashing tools were already enforced and institutionalized for years. I am trying to forgive you, Fidel Castro. I hope I do it before I die. I am trying to make the peace with the darkness you brought into our hungry homes in Cuba.Reading "Waiting for Snow in Havana" by Carlos Eire brings me back to a Cuba I did not know and did not choose to become what is today. I can see the bearded man who destroyed so many families and marked so many generations. It all started with a few men thinking there were going to bring a better world away from Batista the dictator. They ended up with another dictator who killed our dreams and made us into "the new man" that had to flee their shores to become free.

Having visted cuba in August I wanted to hear about the thoughts, dream and hopes of those who left during Fidel's most powerful. I personally do not mind that the author came from a wealthy family, you cannot choose what you are born into. Having visited this magical, sorrowful and green land myself, I can understand the authors battle in feeling torn, twisted and pain around leaving somewhere that was never meant to be permanent. A different view of fidel and cuba that is not so easy to get from visiting and or speaking to the locals who will not say much about the once dream turned regime they now live under. A touching story of yet another set of people who are displaced, across the colour scale.

if you are looking for an author who writes in poetic prose and does so so excellently then this is your book! He writes in a meandering and day dreamingly way that a lot of children think and I loved reading his insight into an unusual childhood to say the least. You can argue that he was just some rich kid who lost everything, but this book isn't about that... Without a doubt, Carlos Eire more than any other writer has influenced the way I write. Just read the opening paragraph and you'll be hooked... the finishing paragraph is also just as daydreaming-ly good!

I love it. My fav bit remains “I stare with delight at the green chameleon Kant is holding. Wordlessly, on behalf of all lizards, the creature says, ‘We forgive you, we really do.’ In this, my dream of dreams, I kiss it fondly, and let go forever.”

Very dissapointing album. Music started off promising with Chinese melodies but then a modern beat was added which made the whole thing very jarring. Sort of music they play in cheap shopping centers.

'Waiting For Snow in Havana' is the disjointed memoir of Carlos Eire. Although it is marketed as a Cuban memoir, it is more about childhood in general, in a Cuban setting. A great deal of the events told here could be from any childhood, in any country. Things like throwing stones at each other and fighting in school could come from any boys childhood. Saying that, the aspects of Cuban life that are touched upon, more so in the second half of the book, are insightful into life in Cuba when Fidel took control and the revolution changed life in Cuba forever. The reason why I say this is disjointed is because it flicks back and forth in time and thus the chronology gets confusing at times. Never the less, this is an interesting book, written in a unique style that will keep you engaged with what is being told and gives some idea of life in revolutionary Cuba, especially from a young boys point of view. A solid three stars, good, but not excellent.Feel free to check out my blog which can be found on my profile page.