SKU: 0-671-67999-6
Driving Through Cuba

Description

Carlo Gébler was eight years old in a South London suburb when the fuzzy black-and-white image of a Soviet missile launching site on Cuban soil first made an impression.
When he went off to boarding school, he chose Cuba as a subject for a special history project, and at university he was even more impressed by a Cuban film called Memories of Underdevelopment and the book it was based on, Inconsolable Memo-ries. It was then that he decided to someday visit Cuba. Three published novels finally gave him the opportunity.
He flew to Havana with his family his wife, pregnant with their second child, and their young daughter--a three-month writer's visa, and a driver's license. He rented a Lad and set out to drive the length of Cuba.
His choice of transportation was significant. Cars are potent icons in Cuban culture. During the Batista regime Cuba imported more Cadillacs than any other country, and though American cars haven't been imported since, many of the old Cadillacs are still in use. Cadillacs-an Eldorado Brougham in particular--were one of Gébler greatest attractions to the island of "sunshine socialism."
He drove stretches of road along flat landscapes with no more to see than billboards quoting Castro and extolling the virtues of towns and factories. He used travel guides that led him to "the best hotels in all of Cuba" and found enormous concrete blocks with rooms long and narrow, like railroad carriages, and lights that didn't work.
He befriended characters like Maria, who introduced him to her family and invited him into their home furnished with aluminum garden chairs. People showed him their ration books and the free markets where they paid three times the government prices to make up what the rations didn't provide.
He attended the opera and the ballet, watching spectacular performances while a swarm of bats flitted from the wings. He admired the beauty of Cuban women who adorned themselves wit homemade earrings made from melted toothbrushes and decorated their homes with empty whiskey bottles.
Gébler failed to find the rare Eldorado Brougham, but succeeded in viewing Cuba from a vantage point that few tourists are willing or able to achieve. And by interweaving scenes from Cuban history with wry observations on black marketeers, petty officials, and the many other people he encountered, Gébler paints a unique and eye-opening portrait of Cuba today.