Through Eire's memoir, the reader vicariously experiences a childhood painfully interrupted by a political revolution. In this case, the child is growing up in Cuba in 1959, the year Fidel Castro comes to power. Writing decades later, the author skillfully uses humor and satire to camouflage the anger and grief he felt at being sent to the U.S. with his brother but without their parents, and his subsequent struggles. The uprooting was made worse because Eire's family had been well-to-do; he had wanted for nothing in material terms, and no one supervised his free time, so he could do whatever he wanted. Then at age 11 he must make his way in a completely different culture; despite her strenuous efforts, it is three years before his mother is permitted to join her sons in exile, and their father, to the end of his life, refuses to leave Cuba.
Eire has done well for himself; from the graveyard shift as a dishwasher in his teens he has gone on to hold a professorship at Yale. In addition, the vividness of Eire's memories, his skill in bringing to life on the page his friends, family members, and neighbors, and his charming--or exasperating, depending on your viewpoint--bad boy persona led to this memoir's being awarded the National Book Award for nonfiction in 2003.