The Boys from Dolores

Starred review from April 30, 2007
Symmes, whose Chasing Che retraced Che Guevara's transformational 1952 motorcycle trip through Latin America, writes a history of the Cuban revolution that also explores the qualities that define what it is to be Cuban. He draws on his own visits and extended stays in Cuba, and the half-century-old memories of a group of formerly privileged boys, now mostly exiled, who along with Castro attended Dolores, a Jesuit school that until the revolution, educated Cuba's elites. The Dolores alumni speak poignantly of prerevolutionary Cuba and the “necessary” revolution in which many participated. Equally poignant are their descriptions of events as the revolution lurched toward socialism and repression, events that led them to self-imposed exile. The memories of several expats who were part of the Bay of Pigs fiasco make compelling reading. To the Dolores alumni the Holy Grail is a Cuba without Castro, but Symmes, whose picture of Castro is unsympathetic in the extreme, nonetheless worries that a Castro-less Cuba will, without remorse, leave its poor bereft and evolve into a society that is more free but less just. Symmes's writing is lyrical and evocative; his powerful and complex picture of Cuba and the exile community is well worth reading.

Starred review from June 15, 2007
Castro's tale has been told from all angles, but journalist Symmes ("Chasing Che") attacks from a new direction. The author writes of Castro's schoolmates from Dolores, the private Jesuit academy in Santiago de Cuba on the island's eastern end, and he visits several of them. Many are in exile, and a handful remain in Cuba. Among the Dolores students were Castro's brothers Raul and Ramon and a future star in North American television, Desi Arnaz. But it is Cuban intellectuals like Lundy Aguilar to whom Symmes turns for insights into Cuba before and after Castro's revolution. The result is a remarkable account of the country and its people. The lengthy chapter on the Bay of Pigs and its aftermath is evocative and powerful, easily the equal of any contemporary writings on Cuba. The book certainly dispels the myth of a romantic revolution with egalitarian goals. As Symmes puts it, "Within the Revolution, everything. Outside the Revolution, nothing." Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 3/15/07.]Boyd Childress, Auburn Univ. Lib., AL

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2007
The Colegio de Dolores was a prestigious Jesuit run school for boys and located in eastern Cuba. In the 1940s, the student body included three brothers raised on a plantation in Oriente province. The Castro brothers, Ramon, Fidel, and Raul, were noted for their boisterous behavior, crude manners, and propensity to challenge authority. What seemed to unite them with their more refined schoolmates were their shared hopes for a more progressive and independent Cuba. But this isnt really a story about the Castro brothers. Rather, Symmes, a journalist who has traveled extensively in Cuba, has profiled some of their classmates, many of whom now reside in exile in the U.S. Many of them display intense hostility toward Fidel and the Cuban Revolution, but they also provide interesting insights into life in Cuba before the revolution.Their memories are often rather poignant, as they reveal a narrow nostalgia for a Cuba that is now gone (and, in fact, may never have existed). This work provides a useful look at the islands past, present, and possibilities for the future.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)