It is where Fidel Castro raised money to overthrow Batista and where two generations of Castro's enemies have raised armies to overthrow him, so fa...
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Dec 15, 2011
Jlawrence
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Didion continues to be my favorite non-fiction author. The precision of her language matches the precision of her analysis, whether she's describing on the micro scale of how minute gestures of an interviewee reveal their worldview, or the macro scale of Washington politics in the Reagan era. Here (circa '87) she's plumbing the gulf between Miami's Cuban and Anglo populations, and the complicated relation of Cuban anti-Castro militants to Washington, "la lucha" (the struggle) and eac
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Mar 24, 2010
Ryan
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It seems like it's cheating to rate a book when I didn't actually finish it, but I read about 75% of it. I really enjoyed the first few chapters that were a bit more sociological about North America's only truly Latin American city (for instance, in 1987, only 23% of the population in Miami spoke English as a first language), but it soon began delving into so much of the history of American-Cuban relations that I just got lost. I tried very hard to keep up, but after 100 pages or so of what ba
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Jun 28, 2009
Nathan
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I actually picked this book up before I recent trip to Miami and read it on the way back on the plane. It felt a little dated (it pubed in 1987) but Joan Didion's writing made for enjoyable reading, especially her descriptions of Miami's languid, underwater feel. The chronicling of particular Miami residents' lives, particularly of Cuban-Americans & African Americans, was eye-opening. Growing up in 80's these stories seemed somehow imbedded in my brain w/out me knowing it. The only thing keeping
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Jan 21, 2009
Jessamyn
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After reading Miami, I wished that Joan Didion would write about everything. It seems the perfect way to get information. Miami was described as a novel on the dust jacket, but it isn't one. There is a strong flow through her description of facts and events-- so reading it put me in a mood that made me feel like I was reading a novel. Joan Didion spent time in Miami for several years, and she writes about the things that interest her: the biggest sense of the city's feeling, the patterns of powe
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Oct 04, 2010
Christopher
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Miami, Cuba, Cuban-Americans, Cuba-American relations... all endlessly arresting topics well-suited to Didion's skeptical eye. Also, an important ancillary point made by the book that merits mentioning before he fully undergoes "dead people must be great" canonization: Ronald Reagan was a truly bizarre, negative figure in American politics. There is a pretty straight line from the Reagan presidency to the Fox News contributor as try-out for higher office spasm currently dominating t
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Jul 15, 2011
Christopher
rated it: 
This one took me a while to get into. The narrative, if you will, is non-linear, opaque, and often confusing and contradictory sounding. But that's the point. Didion stirs a tropical cauldron of politics, actions, laments, lies and reversals. The end result is a heat-dream snapshot of a Miami often closer culturally to Cuba than America.
Oct 02, 2011
Colin
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I associate Didion so much with the late 60s/early 70s and then The Year of Magical Thinking that it's odd to see phrases like "President Reagan" in her writing. However, Miami is a key connection between the New Journalism of early Didion and the memoirs of late Didion. There are spectacular turns of sentences, odd-but-completely-obvious connections between things and ideas, and much of what I love about Didion--but with very little of JD herself.
Jun 21, 2009
Frank
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Some of the themes seem a little dated now, twenty-years later. Some things about the Cuban exile view both across the Florida Strait and back over their collective shoulder at the rest of North American haven't changed at all. And should it? After all, Fidel still lives.
Mar 13, 2011
Llew
rated it:
Very in-depth look at the Cuban exile community in Miami and the history of involvement with the CIA. Not so much about the culture or the why surrounding it all, and a strange writing style at times, but a good information source for anybody interested in the topic.
Apr 01, 2010
Irena
rated it:
revisited this book after another Miami visit and this time there was much underlining of the workings of exile. (What a strange, non-American city Miami is, paralleled only by New Orleans in its distinctive disregard of Anglo definitiveness.)
Apr 06, 2011
Jessica
rated it:
Sadly, it's too late for me to grow up to be Joan Didion. She does shit with commas that should be illegal all in fifty states, makes it work, and then stands in tropical humid heat, smoking calmly, without breaking a sweat.
If I weren't already dreaming of a move to Miami, this book might have nudged me in that direction. It's not really so much about Miami, per se, but about Cubans there in the eighties. I recommend it, if you're into that sort of thing.
If I weren't already dreaming of a move to Miami, this book might have nudged me in that direction. It's not really so much about Miami, per se, but about Cubans there in the eighties. I recommend it, if you're into that sort of thing.
May 07, 2009
Kirsten
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After finishing my history course, I would be a lot more interested in reading this again and seeing what I would gain from it. I was simply not in the know enough to understand the parallels she was drawing at the time.
Feb 22, 2009
Michael
rated it:
Positing that Miami, in the 1980s, was less American than CIA-Cuban-interlocked-paranoia-land, where political reality was corrugated by the battering of complex social and emotional stresses.
Apr 04, 2011
Lynn
rated it:
This book is probably more interesting being when it was written, but it has not aged that well.
The parts about Miami are well done with the tie-in between the Cuban exiles and the Contras and the US government is well known by now so the book is not that much revelation so many years after the fact.
The parts about Miami are well done with the tie-in between the Cuban exiles and the Contras and the US government is well known by now so the book is not that much revelation so many years after the fact.
Feb 04, 2009
Mansoor
rated it: 
I now believe in conspiracy theories. Has Joan Didion ever written a bad non-fiction book?
Dec 23, 2008
Wendy
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Some of my favorite Didion sentences are in this book. But I can't say much else good about it.
Feb 12, 2011
Megan
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Fascinating place, but Didion is petulant and sloppy (for her, anyway) here.
Jun 04, 2007
Taylor Kate
rated it:
“begins: Havana vanities come to dust in Miami.” Joan Didion writes without a single wasted word and is the master of grammatically correct run-on sentences. She does justice to a city I barely know anything about, so much so that I feel the South Florida humidity on my forehead.I’m shocked that nearly 200 pages of political intrigue surround U.S. foreign policy in Latin America from 1960 to 1980 could be so… sexy?
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Dec 29, 2011
Good, though it is essentially all about the Cuban expatriate community and how has informed Miami history specifically from the Revolution through the 80s.
Sep 17, 2010
Broadsnark
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This book should realy be called Cubans in Miami, because it doesn't talk much about anybody else. But it does give a pretty good overview of Miami Cuban politics in the 60s, 70s and 80s.
Sep 27, 2008
Currently reading as part of my "get to know Miami" pursuits...Know great books about Miami (or Florida in general)? Please tell me about them!
Feb 10, 2012
