Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy

The blurb on the back of my copy of this book says that it both an exorcism and an ode to a paradise lost: Mr. Eire's memories of his boyhood as a member of the Cuban upper classes, the wrenching transformation of his country after Castro's revolution and his emmigration to America as part of an airlift of 14,000 children dubbed Operation Pedro Pan.

As one who has a love of magical realism in Latin American fiction, this book is magical realism come to life as the author talks about his parents past lives as the King & Queen of France, as he sees Jesus through his dining room window and ponders the horrors of the lizards that are everywhere in Havana. Many of these images can be ascribed to memories that are hazy with time and that dwell show more in early childhood. Are they really memories or are they memories of what has been told in the family over and over again until they seem real? It really doesn't matter as the author's writing is so compelling that I could not put this book down. show less

Considering that Carlos Eire was only eleven years old when he left Cuba, this book could have gone wrong in a lot of different ways. From a certain perspective, it's nothing but a series of childhood reminiscences, not too different from the kind that any upper-middle class Cuban boy of his generation might have. He talks about Cuba's beautiful skies, its seashore, its daily rituals, and a bit about its fragile social structure. But he mines this material for all that it's worth. And specifically because his life is now a closed book, every one of these forty brief chapters is impregnated with terrible longing and loss. It also helps that the author's got a sharp eye, a good sense of structure -- these little chapters frequently show more connect to others or circle back on themselves -- and a well-developed sense of irony. Considering that his father -- athough often kind, caring and boyishly playful -- actually seems to have believed himself to be a reincarnation of Louis XIV of France, he probably needed that last quality.

But "Waiting for Snow in Havana" also goes deeper, in some ways, than the average midlife memoir has to. Like Eire, I moved countries at a young age, although, unlike him, I've never been any sort of refugee. Even so, I found parts of this book excruciatingly difficult to read, and the author's description of the profound effect that this event had on not just his life but on his deepest self rings very true. Eire still considers him fundamentally, inalterably Cuban, and the reader can sense how the memories he includes here have sustained him throughout his life. At the same time, the rude shock of being separated from his family and culture and losing his social status also shaped his adulthood. In its last chapters, we can see that "Waiting for Snow in Havana" is much more than an exercise in upper-class nostalgia. Eire fully embraces the fact that he had to face great adversity and grow from it: he's turned his exile and the sometimes fragmentary memories he took from Cuba into a way to discover himself and who he is. This book won't suit anyone, but I suspect that lots of people who's had suffered a serious geographic dislocation at some point during their lives -- who've had to leave everything behind and move on -- will find it to be seriously inspiring testimony. show less

Carlos Eire was one of 14,000 children airlifted out of Cuba without their parents during "Operation Peter Pan" between 1960 and 1962. This funny, poignant, sad, insightful, and informative memoir won the National Book Award in 2003 and rightfully so. Carlos was 11 when he and his brother Tony, who was 13, landed in Miami believing that their parents were soon to follow. In the hour flight from Havana, Carlos went from being a privileged fair skinned Cuban boy to being a "spic."

The majority of this book is set in Havana where Carlos enjoys a care-free and privileged life with a thick layer of Catholicism and extended family. His father is a eccentric art-collecting judge, his mother a woman with a crippled leg due to polio and show more dedicated to her children. The antics of Carlos and his brother, Tony, are often hilarious but life is changing as Fidel Castro ousts President Batista on January 1 1959. Suddenly, there is gunfire in the streets, Christmas is made illegal, relatives are imprisoned, and parents are scrambling for ways to protect their children by sending them to the United States.

Eire is an absolutely beautiful writer. Filled with humor, philosophy, and a sprinkling of theology, "Waiting for snow in Havana" provides the reader with a chance to walk in the shoes of a young immigrant who was thrown into a strange new world. Eire is currently a professor of theology at Yale. show less

Cuba...land of tangerine sunsets and turquoise waves...steamy heat and voodoo curses. I loved reading the memoir of a judge's son who is close to my age but who grew up in very different circumstances. Carlos's first 11 years were the carefree days of a child of means. Days of family gatherings, bike riding, swimming, movies, and tormenting the ubiquitous lizards -- minus half a star for that! The revolution is hinted at from time to time, and like a bruise one can't help touching to see if it still hurts, Carlos returns over and over to those tumultuous times that shaped his years of childhood until he was "expelled from paradise."

14,000 children left Cuba without their parents in the early 1960s because they didn't need the visas that show more took up to a year to obtain. The idea was that the parents would soon follow them to a reunion in the U.S. These youngsters left their country and families carrying only two sets of clothes, a hat, and a book..."the only hint of mercy." It was an abrupt transition from life in Cuba to the U.S. Almost four years in orphanages and foster homes passed until Carlos and his brother Tony were able to join their mother in Chicago:

..."As the train began to roll past the steel mills and oil refineries on the South Side of Chicago, it seemed we had passed through the gates of hell. We saw acres and acres of smokestacks shooting out flames, huge twisting labyrinths of pipes, mazes of twisting stairs, giant spheres, and colossal storage tanks. But it was the flames that make me reel. Big, noisy flames. Balls of flame. Jets. Plumes. Flares. Soft, dancing flames that swayed in the wind and made the chimneys look like giant candles at Satan's dinner table. Fountains of fire. Satan's Versailles." (195)

Carlos writes with pathos and passion about his memories of his homeland - a country that is part of him but still a place he will not visit while it is under the oppressive Castro regime. I guess in his case it's true that you can't go home again. show less

Subtitled “Confessions of a Cuban Boy,” this memoir first caught my eye because of the great title, then because it was written by one of the boys separated from his family during the early reign of Fidel Castro, during the Operation Pedro Pan exodus, an attempt to save children of those deemed against the Revolution, those most in danger.

The book almost lost me when the author along with other little boys, cruel as children often can be, started torturing lizards, symbolic of much to come. I expected a typical memoir but that is certainly not what I got. The writing is not linear, the author speaks to us readers directly, and frequently gives hints of what is to come, promises to tell us more later. The style is quirky and was a show more bit disconcerting to me until I gave myself over to the author's story.

The child, Carlos, most often refers to his father as Louis XVI, as his father claimed to be in a former life, and his mother as Marie Antoinette, although she did not claim to be a reincarnation. His father was a judge and an attorney, one of the privileged ones under Batista. Childhood in Havana is painted in pictures vibrant and astounding, family and friends all coming to life. Very little of the book deals with Carlos or his family after Carlos was separated from his brother, the only person he knew in the United States, as soon as they landed.

Some examples of the author's style of prose:

“Crotons of all kinds. Giant philodendrons. Caladiums. Flowers. Palms in all shapes and sizes. Especially royal palms, so tall, so regal. So Cuban. Palms that pierce my heart and entrails to this very day.”

“I was one of the lucky ones. Fidel couldn't obliterate me as he did all the other children, slicing off their heads over so slowly, and replacing them with fearful, slavish copies of his own. New heads held in place by two bolts, like Boris Karloff's in Frankenstein, one bolt forged from fear, the other from illusion.”

“If Adam and Eve hadn't screwed up so badly, and their children had been able to play in the Garden of Eden, they would have laughed just like we did that day, when we threw rocks at one another on the edge of the turquoise sea.”

“To understand Fidel you have to be out of your mind. To live with the memories, too, it helps to have lucid moments that others mistake for delusions.”

This lyrical memoir is written with a strange mix of philosophy, religion, symbolism, and an adult's remembrance of his childhood: family, Havana, and the politics of the day. It is serious, touching, beautiful, funny, and entertaining. I loved it. show less

"The past is a nice place to visit, but not a place to live" is something I've been told. Carlos Eire's writings beg the opposite. He offers a glimpse at paradise lost too soon and briefly of a living hell on earth. It is related in just the way a child would tell a story: somewhat easily distracted by other thoughts but seamlessly returning to the original topic as though it were all related embellishing when fantasy is logical. I thoroughly enjoyed the writing style. The story combines horror, bravery, adventure, pure happiness and pure sadness.

I sat down to read a few pages and was completely drawn into it. Although it is nominally a memoir, he moves around and remembers the way a child does. His childhood doesn't seem all that different to a child in the 50s in the US until it comes quite vividly different. I loved his writing style and the raw emotion he shared. Wonderfully written and extremely evocative.