King of Cuba

by Cristina García

El Comandante, an aging Castro-like 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 the very same El Comandante whom he blames for stealing his beloved, ruining his homeland, and taking his father's life. Shifting between the two men with great resonance and humour, and peppered with the rabble of other Cuban voices to create a patchwork of history's unofficial stories, Cristina Garcia's novel plumbs the passions and realities of these two Cubas - on the island, and off. Writing with wit and insight, and very much at the top of her form, she returns to the territory of her Cuban homeland.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Latinx, International, Book Club, Novels

256 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2013

About the author

After working for Time Magazine as a researcher, reporter, and Miami bureau chief, García turned to writing fiction. Her first novel, Dreaming in Cuban (1992), received critical acclaim and was a finalist for the National Book Award. She has since published her novels The Agüero Sisters (1997) and Monkey Hunting (2003), and has edited books of Cuban and other Latin American literature. Her fourth novel, A Handbook to Luck, was released in hardcover in 2007 and came out in paperback in April 2008.

Reviews

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very witty take on Castro and his revolution, now an old man, living in his memories and his past glories. Reminiscing about the revolution when he was so beloved of his people. His wives, his mistresses, Che, how he settled hunger strikes, his magnetic personality, Batista and much more. Everything we learn about Cuba's past is through his memories.

Goya, an 86 yr. old man, living in Miami, has hated Castro all these years, much of his ranch in Cuba had been taken for redistribution when Castro came to power. Castro also seduced and got pregnant the woman Goya had loved. His life in the present is tumultuous, due to his grown children and he two dwells much in the past and his hatred.

This is in many ways a spoof of two old men, in failing health, dwelling on past glories and feelings. Resentful that their youth is gone and how they are treated now. There are many amusing lines, interesting tidbits from the past and present but at times I still found this somewhat tedious. One does not read this for the history, but for an amusing take of a man who has been in power for a very long time.

[Cherie · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. Sorry, I can't do it anymore. Just dumb and lame.

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Scribner Books for sending me an advanced copy of this book.

In 1956, Fidel Castro launched the Cuban Revolution to replace Fulgencio Batista with a communist regime and to secure ties with the Soviet Union. This larger-than-life revolutionary, who began life as the illegitimate son of a middle class sugar cane farmer, became one of the most controversial figures in history, credited by some as having destroyed Cuba, by others as saving the country from the demon of capitalism. His violent campaign employed guerilla tactics, torture and confiscating of private lands and industries.

The King of Cuba is told through two points of view, the fictionalized version of dictator Fidel Castro, "El Commandante," and Goyo Herrera, an expatriate living in Miami. Nearing the end of his life, El Commandante wants to resurrect the sixty year-old glories of his regime by staging a reenactment of The Bay of Pigs, "to put an end to the creeping amnesia regarding the glories of the revolution." Goyo is plotting to exact revenge against the tyrant for destroying his beloved Cuba.

Interspersed with short narratives from Cuban citizens, this is a gritty tale, replete with ribaldry, humor, geriatric infirmities and theatrical flourishes, a portrayal of two men struggling with the decline of Cuba as much as their own withering "pingas."

[Ted Lehmann]

I'm not going to rate this book because I think it might be someone else's cup of rum. It's a novel concerning an anonymous but thinly disguised Cuban dictator now in old age and a Cuban emigre living in Miami. The character from Miami has only one goal in mind...outliving el Conquistador. It's written in a mordantly funny and pretty scatological voice which made me laugh a few times, but didn't interest me enough to finish reading it. I read 18% of it in a electronic galley provided by Edelweiss.

[Momi · Rating 1 out of 5]

I skimmed the last third of this book because the two main characters remained the same creepy old jerks they were in the beginning. There was minimal plot to pull me along; they both die ingloriously in an assassination attempt. I regret wasting time on this book.

[Elaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was funny, ribald and refreshing at the beginning but nothing develops or changes, and I was skimming by the end.

[John Thorndike · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m biased. Almost anything about Cuba fascinates me, and Cristina Garcia has become the definitive chronicler of both Cuba and Cuban exiles.

Garcia’s approach to plot and narration is sometimes a trial. She doesn’t like a single point of view, but wanders through time and many characters. This worked perfectly in Dreaming in Cuban, but in The Lady Matador’s Hotel I thought it gave the book a skittish feel.

I appreciate, in King of Cuba, Garcia’s new-found discipline in telling the story almost entirely from the point of view of two men: El Comandante (also called the despot, the tyrant or El Líder---clearly this is Fidel) and a Miami exile, Goyo Herrera, who is as old and infirm as Castro. Garcia has channeled her impulse to write from many perspectives by scattering small vignettes and footnotes throughout the book: observations by imagined Cuban poets, meat inspectors and meteorologists. These don’t help the narrative drive of the story, but they are all bite-sized and don’t interfere for long.

What I loved about the book is its portrait of old age. Of Goyo Herrera the author says, “He didn’t know a single Cuban of his generation who wasn’t besotted with the past.” Goyo’s last trip with his son, a man nearing sixty and perhaps schizophrenic, is filled with aching moments. “If only he could kiss his son’s eyes, wash his feet, take away his suffering, ease his inexhaustible heart.” But he cannot, and leaves him in a New Jersey motel, as Goyo himself drives on to New York. He’s on his way, if he can manage it, to assassinate El Comandante.

Garcia’s portrait of the desperation and ignominies of old age, of the hopeless attempt to cleave to past glories, transcends Cuban history and brings us two men I found cantankerous and self-inflating, but irresistible.

[Paul Pessolano · Rating 3 out of 5]

“King of Cuba” by Cristina Garcia, published by Scribner.

Category – Fiction/Literature Publication Date – May 21, 2013

El Comandante in this book is none other than Fidel Castro. Let there be no mistake about it and you can sugar coat in any way you want to but the book is about him.

“King of Cuba” will have as its main reader’s people of Cuban descent that live in the Miami area and are refugees of the Fidel Castro Cuba, especially those who still dream of returning to their homeland.

The book revolves around the aging dictator and Goya Herrera. Goya is a refugee whose family was once prominent in the Cuban society. Goya wishes for only one thing and that is to outlive El Comandante.

The story shifts between both men. El Comandante’s take over of Cuba and its move to Communism, and the dependency of Cuba on subsidies from the Soviet Union and the hardships it faces when those subsidies are lost with the downfall of the Soviet Union.

Goya, who is besieged by family problems, blames El Comandante for ruining his country, stealing his true love, and the murder of his father. Goya becomes so incensed with hatred that he plans, at eighty years of age, to assassinate El Comandante.

A good read but one that will be of interest to a very small sector of readers.

[Mandapants · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like the particular pair of old men it features, "King of Cuba" is somewhat slow to get going and meandering once it starts up. There are enough entertaining bits along the way to keep on going until the plot piddles out in an oddly quick wrap up. Mostly, it doesn't know what it wants to be. Is it a Rushdie-eqsue revisionist magical realism political novel, or a Hiaasanian Floridian comedy? I like both of these things, but "King of Cuba" is unsatisfactorily both and neither.

Not a complaint, but on a fair warning note, there's enough semi-dirty and downright filthy Spanish in the novel to make me clear my Google translation history. And, dear Google Translate, why exactly do you know the word MILF anyway?

[David Garcia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yikes. Very hard time finding things to like with this effort. Being a first generation Cuban and lover of anything to do with history, culture, info etc I just couldn’t find a character to like or even feel empathy. The satire was lost on me unfortunately. The unusual character traits just left me feeling annoyed. Try Dreaming in Cuba and leave this one alone.

[Chispita Kelly · Rating 1 out of 5]

absolutely disgusting, boring, dumb and weird. i hate that i wasted time on this and i dont think id bother to read anything else by her, given how truly just gross this was (physically- the mentions of shit and pus and just truly grotesque old men 🤮)

[Kara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Garcia is a master storyteller, and all of her work is worth reading. I thoroughly enjoyed this fictional imagining of a thinly veiled Fidel Castro's last days. The narrative is paralleled with a vengeful, aging Cuban exile provided plenty of humor and profundity. I did read this as Garcia's response to her earlier works, mostly Dreaming in Cuban and Aguero Sisters. The minor characters appeared in foot-noted narratives, a move similar to Junot Diaz's novel _Oscar Wao_. Literary nerds will love references to Faust, Shakespeare, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Overall, a darkly humorous and tender story about attempting to reclaim one's youth and regrets at the end of one's life, whether that entail an otherwise anonymous octogenarian or an infamous dictator.

[Jenny Butler · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this book as an assignment for a college course. I would have abandoned it early on if I had chosen it myself. I appreciated learning more about the history of Cuba, but I did not enjoy reading the stories of the two main characters. I found both of them to be extremely unlikable without redeeming qualities. The minor characters were also unlikable or not developed enough to make a difference to me as the reader. Perhaps the only character I felt any empathy for was Rudy, the Great Dane who died while chasing a deer.

[Linda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sadly, I was very disappointed.

[Alicia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not nearly as good as Dreaming Cuban. Plot was jumbled, characters not likeable, etc.

[pdxmaven · Rating 4 out of 5]

El Commandante is aging in his mansion in Havana, while a Cuban exile in Miami plots (in his mind) against him. Most anything about Cuba I devour since traveling there; this combination a great tour de force, especially since Castro had died not all that long before our visit. a few parts I especially noted:
speaking of Castro (whose endless speeches were legendary), and then of the ubiquitous image of Che (which we saw everywhere in Cuba): "Of all his infirmities, the incessant choking bothered him most because it interfered with his ability to speak. If he couldn't speak, he couldn't cajole, intimidate, or command.... His old rial, Che, had suffered from chronic asthma, and this had slowed down the rebels in the Sierra Maestra. Half the time, Che was laid up looking like a goddamn saint. At least he's had the decency to (finally) die young and photogenic while 'exporting revolution to Latin America, thereby becoming the face of radical heroism. That photography -the one of him in a beret looking beatifically toward the future-was the most ubiquitous image of the twentieth century. Fifteen years ago an anthropology museum in Los Angeles had exhibited its infinite reproductions: refrigerator magnets, T-shirts, designer handbags, flip-flops, even neckties. page 29
And this one, which captures many of the contractions we saw and hear about, again and again: "A stack of fresh reports was piled high on his [Castro's] desk: annual nickel production, last winter's lobster harvest, revisions to the elementary school curriculum, tobacco exports to Switzerland, illegal marijuana production in Oriente, the trade imbalance with Mozambique, an espose on the cross-dressing babalawos of Camaguey, another of Baracoa's illicit moonshine operators (Five people had died from the sweet potato liquor.) How the hell did he know what was true anymore? People told him only what they thought he wanted to hear. Nobody had the nerve to say that this plan was unsound, or that most government employees didn't bother to show up for work on any given day. Cuba was riddled with corruption, hustlers, parasites: plagued by a culture of sinecure, amiguismo, back-scratching, ball-scratching. If you didn't lie, cheat, or steal* you were considered stupid or incredibly naive. If you happened to be a genuinely honest, hardworking revolutionary, you came under the worst scrutiny of all accused of being a spry, a sellout angling for some negligible advantage over your neighbor. (and under *: Stealing is an ugly word, Papito, but I ask you this: When I steal your entry fee from the state, why do you call that 'theft'? Everyone here works for slave wages, so I ask you: who's robbing whom? - Yvette Aguirre, Paragada factory tour guide " pages 91-91
And this one, speaking of Castro’s spies and Soviet espionage: “To this day Cuban spies had infiltrated the highest ranks of the CIA and the Pentagon without blowing their covers….The intelligence they’d gathered, e.g., who’d killed President Kennedy, Jimmy Hoffa’s whereabouts, et cetera, had proved invaluable for the Revolution as well as for the Soviets, who’d turned out to be as clumsy in espionage as they were in bed.” pages 110-11

[Jan · Rating 3 out of 5]

El Comandante, "King of Cuba," and Goyo, an exile in Miami, are the two main characters of this novel by Cristina Garcia. Their interwoven stories reveal parallels of their lives over decades: the women they love, ambitions, marks made, and marks missed. Each is a man of action who must deal with loss. Deaths, legacies, and divided loyalties among families are part of the bitterness each addresses or ignores. Both characters are larger than life, and I found them both lacking in terms of development. You'll recognize their shared patterns, or at least shared challenges, as they navigate their lives. This aspect of "King of Cuba" left me unimpressed. In other works I've read by Cristian Garcia, her main characters have captivated me because of their rich development; neither of these protagonists met my expectations.

Despite my disappointment in the lead characters, I found the individual characters in the interspersed vignettes to be engaging. THESE would be the characters I would want to read in more detail. An arborist, a glassblower, and a chambermaid are but three of the professionals who add voice to this novel. In one page or less, each professional gives me a glimpse into this near-by yet far away world of Cuba. Common people like a caffeine addict who bemoans Cuban coffee which is mediocre (her words being "half-assed) or a disabled veteran reveal the hopes and dreams of the Cuban people. There are other vignette characters scattered throughout, and these were the bright spots that moved this novel forward for me.

My continued summer 2020 reading includes two more books by Cristina. I have every intention of reading them, and I hold every hope that I will find them as engaging and as developed as other novels she's written. "King of Cuba" simply disappointed me.

[John Vanderslice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good novel. Garcia got a lot of deserved press for it. It's sort of a dark comedy about Castro and those Cuban exiles in the U.S. who despised him. As she says in book club questions that follow the novel (in my edition), Castro and those who intensely hate him are like two sides of the same coin. Certainly true of the characters in her book. Very interesting structure to the novel as well, with two competing narratives interrupted by a chorus of (fictional) voices: Various Cubans lamenting about how bad life has become in their homeland. I guess it's supposed to be like high theatre of the Greek sort. But the ending (no spoiler alert) feels a lot like tragicomedy. No real complaints, but I was a little miffed as to why she so closely puts aspect of Castro and his rule into the book (notably the failed Bay of Pigs invasion), linking the narrative directly to the facts of Cuban history and the man himself, while at the same time she deliberately tries to make the character of El Commandant not exactly be Castro either. She never uses the name Castro and, from what she says in the questions afterword, she did that on purpose. Yet, it's impossible to read El Commandant as anything other than Castro. He's exactly like Castro, except for a few minor biographical changes. Not a huge issue; I'm just curious about Garcia's choice. Reading this book certainly makes me want to read the issue of her oeuvre.

[Londondailyphoto · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought this book, amongst others, as I was going on holiday to Cuba. While I would not characterise it as a bad book, overall it was tough going. It helps when you realise that the connection with reality is tenuous at best, although quite strong in overall tone: events described might have happened, people described could have existed, they just didn't.

Writing style is effective in bringing the central two characters to life and flows reasonably, if it does wander down the occasional meaningless tributary. I really didn't enjoy the occasional ad hoc insertion of supposed third party comment which I found it intrusive; I ended up treating it as a footnote that could be ignored. The plot, such as it is, is a vehicle for the characters to play out their thoughts and emotions, and it is there that the strength of the book lies: two old men, looking back on their lives and looking forward, if only to a very close event horizon.

Not one I would recommend.

[Andrea Misir · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pros: the author does a good job portraying two old stubborn men that refuse to accept the sweet calming embrace of death as they bitterly go about the rest of their lives handicapped by all of the trappings that come with old age.

Cons: the pacing is absolutely terrible. One paragraph will go into all of the woes and legal troubles one of the sons went through and barely scratch the surface. This is specifically on page 25 when some of Goyito’s problems were mentioned like him dealing drugs, doing drugs, being in jail. Then in the next page, she talks about a crumbling brownstone Goyo owns in Manhattan.

It’s very jarring and quite frankly I couldn’t read more after that. I just can’t be bothered to care about any of these characters when absolutely nothing worth caring is mentioned about them

[Justin Morrison · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book "King of Cuba" is about two larger than life men, Fidel Castro living in Cuba and a man exiled from Cuba, living in Miami and wanting revenge on Cuba's dictator. In the book Fidel Castro thinks about the end of his life after his 60 year old revolution. In Miami, the exile named Goyo Herrera plots to get revenge on his long time rival, Fidel Castro. Goyo blames Fidel for stealing his beloved, killing his father and ruining Cuba, his homeland. The book shows different perspectives of Cuba which provides an interesting story. I wouldn't recommend this book because I found the book to be slow at parts and uninteresting sometimes. The book wasn't for me, but I advise for other people to try out the book for themselves.

[Memoree · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book started out with a higher rating from me because there are some entertaining and wry things when Garcia is writing about The Tyrant (Fidel Castro) and Goyo, the Cuban man who wants to finally successfully kill him once and for all. But as I kept reading, my rating decreased. I didn't like all the random "quotes" by Cubans. It felt like they were just thrown in there so Garcia could have more statements about how horrible Castro is but they didn't belong. Then by the end the two old men had just devolved into disgusting slaves to their failing bodies. More was written about their bodily excretions than anything related to the plot.

Also, trigger warning, the dog dies. I don't even know why the dog was in the book. It added nothing to the story.

[Brett Martinez · Rating 3 out of 5]

King of Cuba is a fascinating read about two main characters in Goyo and El Comandante ( who is obviously Fidel Castro). Goyo is a Cuban exile whose only purpose for living is to kill the Cuban tyrant. It is truly fascinating. The only thing I dislike is that in each chapter there are these vignettes about a random character. To me they do not have much to do with the story. However, the story flowed well and really highlighted the passion that many Cuban exiles have in their hatred of Castro and their desire to see their former homeland once again

[Heather Fineisen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A parody of the practices and assassination attempts surrounding Castro. His brother plays a central part in the upcoming birthday celebrations. There is reenactment of the Bay of Pigs that turns into a Producer like entertainment. Goyo, an elderly exiled Cuban living in Florida, plots to kill the tyrant. Told with wit and colorful images.

Copy provided by the Publisher and NetGalley

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a strange book and having read many of the reviews I didnt have great hopes for it!

Neither of the two main characters is very likeable (really they are two sides of the same coin) and they do not endear themselves to the reader at any point in the book.

Having said that, I did actually enjoy the book although its hard to pinpoint exactly why!

[Jill · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read half and then skipped to the end to see what finally happens. I had thought this sounded really clever and interesting but it turned out to be rather dull. The plot focuses on a fictionalized Fidel Castro and his aging issues vs. another aging man living in exile in Florida. It was slow and full of episodes of old men feeling sad about being old. I wouldn't recommend this book to anybody.

[Juan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elements of magical realism but turned on its head as the tale of real people fictionalized to perfection spins to its inevitable conclusion. Deliciously ironic, funny at times, and thoroughly enjoyable throughout.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story about a fictionalized Fidel Casto and an exile who lives in Florida.

[Tyler Burns · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can check out my review here:

https://youtu.be/cuSYxWcdY4Q

[Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars