Cuba Diaries: An American Housewife in Havana

by Isadora Tattlin

Isadora Tattlin was accustomed to relocating often for her husband’s work. But when he accepted a post in Cuba in the early 1990s, she resolved to keep a detailed diary of her time there, recording her daily experiences as a wife, mother, and foreigner in a land of contraband. The result is a striking, rare glimpse into a tiny country of enormous splendor and squalor. Though the Tattlins are provided with a well-staffed Havana mansion, the store shelves are bare. On the streets, beggars plead for soap, not coins. A vet with few real medical supplies operates on a carved mahogany coffee table in a Louis XIV–style drawing room. The people adore festivity, but Christmas trees are banned. And when Isadora hosts a dinner party whose guest list includes Fidel Castro himself, she observes the ultimate contradiction at the very heart of Cuba. Vividly capturing Cuba’s simultaneously appalling and enchanting essence, Cuba Diaries casts an irresistible spell and lifts the enigma of an island that is trapped in time, but not in spirit.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Memoir, Book Club, Biography, Biography Memoir

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Gina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having just returned from a two week visit to Cuba, I can't seem to stop reading people's accounts and experiences of this amazing island. This account is very dated by almost 20 years, so my experience of Cuba was quite different. Yet, I recommend it as both a personal account of a northamericano's experience during the time of the 'periodo especial' after the Soviet Union's withdrawal of aid - very hard times for Cubans! I also recommend it because her family's lifestyle is in such contrast to what most Cubans had to endure. Her family is posted in a mansion in a "wealthy" part of Havana. The container of goods that she packs is eye opening and jaw dropping, as well as, the goods she and her husband leave Cuba with. I had problems with many of her comments and characterizations of the people she met. And I found many of her entries lacking in detail and missed opportunities. I suppose trying to edit four years of journal entries is a bit difficult, but I think she fails to go deeper on many occasions. She was very taken by men's fashion with many long descriptions of what people wore. If you are planning to go to Cuba, read it for the contrast you will experience. I also recommend an even better book, "Es Cuba" by a younger woman in her 20's, who had a much deeper experience than Mrs. Tattlin.

[Brona's Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

Isadora Tattlin is a pseudonym and most of the names in her Cuba Diaries have been changed. However, this takes nothing away from the extraordinary insights into life in Cuba during the late 90's and the periodo especial en tiempo de paz (special period in time of peace) immediately after the withdrawal of economic subsidies from the Soviet Union.

Her love/hate relationship with Cuba over four years has been documented with shopping lists, brief political discussions, history lessons and loads of observations and day to day stories.

Yes, Tattlin was living a privileged life in Cuba, but then again, most visitors to Cuba would fit that category, especially during the 90's.

Her husband worked as an executive for an unnamed European energy company and they mixed in exalted company, eventually having Fidel Castro himself to dinner a couple of times in their final year in Cuba.

Tattlin's obsession with shopping (of the art and jewellery and furniture variety) wore a bit thin by the end, but her daily observations - the everyday fears, worries and delights of living in a foreign country were captured succinctly and sincerely.

As a future visitor to Cuba, I lapped up every word.
Full review here - http://bronasbooks.blogspot.com.au/20...

[Jessaka · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have always loved the architecture of Cuba and the idea that Hemingway lived there. Artists always pick the best places in which to write. I have wanted to go there for years, and then I found this book that just about changed my mind.

The book is interesting but sometimes boring, but I wanted to get it finished and to see what I can learn. I certainly hope the Cuba today is better off than that of the 90s, because back in the 90s there wasn't much food or clothing, but the good was that education and medical was free. Also whenever they remodeled one of the old Havana buildings it seems like they were mostly just facades for the tourists. Lack of good restaurants, restaurants being hard to find, and lack of good food and shopping, caused me to not desire to be there at all. What a shame! And what a crime that the Cubans have to live like this. Wish it would be open to tourism from America now. While I don't understand the politics and don't care to understand, I do understand poverty and so feel for the all peoples who are having these issues.

[Florence Buchholz · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's no doubt that Isadora Tattlin (a pseudonym) was a privileged foreigner in Cuba. She spent four years living in Havana with her husband, a native of an unmentioned country and employee of an international energy consulting firm. Upon arrival in Cuba she felt it necessary to have hundreds of pounds of household supplies shipped in from outside the country to supplement the meager goods available locally. She lived in a house that ordinary Cubans could only dream of and was assisted by a houseful of servants. I wanted to dislike Isadora for being an ugly American, but I couldn't. Her diary is candid and engaging. She has no overt political motivation for judging the Cuban state or its people. In her travels around the island we see a land that is breathtaking in its natural beauty, deprived of material goods, with citizens living in isolated penury.

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had very little sympathy for this "housewife" living in Havana married to a wealthy diplomat. She speaks of the troubles in Havana while her servants stand in line to get her food and the seemingly disingenuous relationships with her friends and neighbors. Just because she lived in Cuba during the special period doesn't mean she understood the real struggles of what the people were going through. She complains of not having fish and vegetables for dinner when Cubans were complaining of not having dinner. And her passivity to her husbands verbal abuse were just plain sad.

Get some perspective lady.

[Frances · Rating 1 out of 5]

yawn....sounded interesting but I couldn't finish it...became dull. Writing not the best

[Amy Rollo · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’m halfway through and cannot read one more page of this snobby woman’s diary. I have got to stop accidentally picking up middle aged white lady American memoirs about their time spent abroad.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

A travel type of book for when on lockdown ,as let's face it Travel ain't looking likely for a while now...not that this is the main reason I owned this book it's been on the shelf for a while and was bought due to my interest in things Cuban especially post or during revolution.
This is a book about a family who have moved to Cuba for working reasons and is Fidels Cuba through the eyes of a foreigner...it's interesting and not wholly complimentary of the nation but in fairness neither is it of American foreign policy.
Even if not always a fan of Cuba the author seems a fan of many of its people..it deals with the frustrations of that time in regard getting goods and having to watch terrible films.
I suspect post Fidel Cuba may be different again ...I think the Raul/Obama years showed a softening of relationships but I understand these have hardened again under Trump.
All in all as a capture of Cuba at this time this reads as a interesting insight.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating account of life in Cuba as seen through the eyes of an American married to a business person who was stationed in Cuba for several years. Although the book is over 20 years old, the perspective is still relevant today. I enjoyed how the author appreciated the natural beauty of the island as well as the overall generous and warm welcome she received from the citizens of the country. I hope to travel there someday and compare my experiences with hers.

[David W · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cuba Diaries was written by the wife of an expat who lived in Cuba for 4 years. This was more of a series of vignettes than a story, so it was informative, interesting (most of the time,) and easy to read in short installments. She captured tons of fascinating little details about everyday life in Cuba under Fidel Castro in the 90s with a specificity that could only come from someone on the inside.

I really enjoyed it, but the end I was glad to finish the book because I was getting tired of her attitude. I figured that naturally, the hardships of relocating to communist Cuba would take center stage at first, but eventually she would adjust and come to love Cuba - or at least parts of it. But she and her children just whined about everything the entire time, didn't make any Cuban friends, and her only takeaway in the end was "US=good, Cuba=bad." I finished the book thinking, "Wow, she really wasted 4 years of her life."

I say that because of my husband's experience living in impoverished areas of Venezuela from 2000-2002 as a religious missionary. They definitely lacked the material comforts he was used to, but instead of focusing on that he focused on appreciating the culture, the language, the food, and the physical beauty of the areas he was in. He came away with a love for the people and their way of life that in some ways, is actually superior to our too-busy, achievement-oriented culture. I'm sure it's like that anywhere. You notice what you focus on, and the author of Cuba Diaries seemed so preoccupied with what Cuba lacked that she noticed little else.

[Jennifer S. Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

My take on this book is probably colored by the fact that I was in Cuba while I was reading it, but I enjoyed this glimpse into Cuban life.

Tattlin (not her real name) is absolutely a privileged ex-pat who can jet off to the States or Europe whenever she likes. Her life is a little hard to relate to--even if we moved to Cuba tomorrow, I can't imagine having six servants and a full-time nanny, and I think it's safe to say, Fidel Castro would never come to my house for dinner--but her tone is accessible and the stories are really interesting. I'm most fascinated when she discusses life day-to-day, more than her interactions with some of the more flamboyant characters she met. She's very upfront about her status, and the glimpses she gives into the lives of her servants are intriguing.

There's much I'm intrigued about that she doesn't cover--her husband is clearly powerful and their relationship left me a little confused and I wanted to know more about how her kids functioned in the Cuban environment--but I do feel her book gave me a very readable, fun way to learn more about Cuba. The chapters are breezy and short, more vignette-like than a cohesive memoir. But that only made it that much better of a travel book.

[Sara G · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book took me a while to read but I did really enjoy it! The author lives a lifestyle most of us can barely imagine - she's a wealthy American married to a foreign national who has a prestigious job at an energy company and lived in Cuba for 4 years during the 90s. They're so wealthy that she doesn't work, her kids are in school, and she STILL has a nanny and like 7 members of staff. Her observations about Cuba and its people during that time are interesting, though, and I thought it was fascinating to see what she focused on - there's lots of commentary on fashion, poverty, food, and sexual tourism specifically. Some of her information isn't on point at all (she asserts that 2/3 of Cubans were middle-class prior to "el triunfo" which is so painfully wrong) but the observations are fascinating, especially when she's self-deprecating or talking about people she could name. Lots of pseudonyms in this one - mainly because she feared reprisal against her former staff or her husband's company, which totally makes sense.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a Spanish teacher, I am ALWAYS intrigued and fascinated by Hispanic/Latino culture from around the world.
Cuba, especially, has always fascinated me.
My dear aunt escaped Cuba in the 1960s with her family at the age of 5.
Having married my mother's much younger brother, she and I have always been close, spending our 20s, 30s (and more) together.
The stories from her family are absolutely outrageous......though sadly, all very true.
My aunt and I have always shared books and so in our quest for a good read as of late, we came across Cuba Diaries and decided we would read it together.
It was an amazing journey for me.....the author tells her tale in a series of diary entries than span 4 years.
I could not put the book down.
For my aunt, it was a personal journey and needless to say she did a lot of crying and had a ton of "Ah ha!" moments.
The book is wonderful for the Cuban-American, like my aunt.....and for the plain old American, like me, just as well!

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

People looking for a plot clearly missed the title that this is a diary and is written as such. The point was to tell about her family's experience in the country through the diary she kept there. People who see the author as complaining didn't read it closely enough to realize she was pointing out the issues and imbalance in the society. Yes, she goes on about missing tomatoes, but then she talks about how people in the country may have never seen them and how sad that is to her. Yes, she gets to have perks most in Cuba will never be able too have, but she is also able to employ people to make well more than they would otherwise. She is able to buy things and be a tourist and help people in the country make some extra money even if just for a little bit. Though published in 2002, she is in Cuba from 1995-1998 it seems (Pope John Paul II visited there in 1998), so it was amazing to me to read so many things happening in Cuba then were still the same when I visited there in 2012.

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like reading about Cuba, even somewhat dated memoirs such as this, a collection of short vignettes based upon her diaries of her four-year stay in the country with her family. Really, it wasn't as bad as 2-stars, but I didn't like her writing or her voice, though there are many revealing observations of life under the embargo and communist rule.

[Lisa Williams · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a dated diary but four years of often eye opening observations from (well off) American lady that lived in Cuba during the mid 90's.

Worth reading for the list of stuff she took with her including 672 rolls toilet paper, 1,200 bottles of wine & 1 kilo oregano.

[Heidi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting enough, but annoying that she only referred to her husband's homeland as X-------. Why?

[Ann Norris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely not written with an understanding of Third World politics and effect of US policies on them. Instead comes off as whiny and spoiled norteamericano.

[Anais · Rating 3 out of 5]

I empathize so completely with this author’s experiences. From the bemused observations of her first year abroad, attending to cultural idiosyncrasies; to the wisened survival skills honed in her second year; to the introspective emotional volleys of the third, when one is too tired to try to keep looking for silver linings- she nails the expat experience with true candor and humor, without degrading or despising the broken Cuban people among whom she lived. She has mastered the art of understatement. She cleverly draws contrasts to emphasize the obvious, such as the Cuban doctor in his threadbare shirt sitting with the Miami restaurant owner dripping in gold, the obvious implication being that Fidel’s triunfo was all in his mind. Communism took one of the richest countries in the world and made it absolutely destitute, and made the people slaves to the State. As my Cuban grandfather used to say, communism promises that all every one will be equal- that is, equally poor. In spite of this, the author, of a self-described liberal bent, occasionally argues the point of the communist, comforting the butler, for instance, saying that Cuba had the advantage (over the U.S.) of having healthcare. I found this almost disingenuous considering her own multiple experiences in Cuba (waiting for hours at an office to be seen for a brief moment in a squalid room, to be given a questionable diagnosis). In the United States, that same individual to whom she was giving a false sense of encouragement would also have had access to free healthcare thanks to Medicare and it would have been of much higher quality.

My own intimate familiarity of the exile community and Cuban culture made me disagree with the author on some nuances of the Cuban language. Sometimes her interpretation of a phrase isn’t exactly right as is the case with a poem she reads at an art gallery (‘Estár hecho tierra’ means, in the context of the poem, ‘to have [re]turned into dust/dirt’’… died without a legacy.) Another example is in her treatment of the word “negrito” which she translates as nigger but the strong connotation of the English word makes this a poor equivalency. I think the Cuban usage would warrant its own term to be used “as is”, since the severely racist attributes of the word are absent, being more a comment on complexion than it is on human worth denied to a particular race.

I have lived in more than one underdeveloped nation but I can’t imagine having had to live in a place of such rampant corruption, vigilantism, dishonesty, and hypocrisy where sex tourism is a staple, and one can only get 4 vegetables for most of the year. (Though in my current post we can usually get 5 or 6 vegetable options and that is indeed a hardship.) Losing her mind because of the inability to conseguir the right sized ziplock bags…. I get it. If you haven’t lived it, it’s hard to understand. But 1990s Cuba was another level. Having to deal with the degree of survivalist disillusion that she dealt with would have broken me.

[Tamara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am a fan of most things that have to do with most Spanish speaking cultures and Cuba has always been a place that intrigued me. I have read numerous fiction and non-fiction books that have Cuba as it's back drop. I know that life in Cuba was and still is not what we have here in the United States, I know life is tough. The author Isadora Tattlin (pseudonym) a wealthy American originally from California writes her account of life in Cuba, more than twenty years ago. She, her husband and family travel from country to country for her husband Nick's job. For someone who had previously travelled so much, I would have thought her account of Cuba could have been less severely written. Surely, prior to going to Cuba, she had seen some very depressed places that had poverty and very strong class differentiations. I found parts of the book very depressing and although I am sure these things were as she saw them, I wish were written a little less negatively. I also felt that the author and her family were somewhat entitled in a lot of ways. I had this book on my bookshelf for quite a while and was looking forward to reading it, unfortunately her account of life in Cuba left me feeling very negatively towards the author and hoping that life is better now than when the author and her family were there, based on what she wrote.

[Simon Colbeck · Rating 1 out of 5]

A title that promises far more than it delivers. This privileged American seems mainly preoccupied with trivia, snide innuendo and whingeing about deficiencies in consumer goods and services she feels she has a right to expect in any country, merely by dint of her affluent expat status. Clearly these were much harder times for Cubans than they were during my travels there (in 2008) but her (very shallow) political critique is entirely lacking in contextual insight. Perhaps she can hardly be blamed for arriving and departing with (lifelong?) preconceptions intact. There is a nodding recognition of the economic effects of US hostility but little attempt to conceal horror and disgust wherever it causes inconvenience to her habitual lifestyle priorities. The inference is always that the people are (rather unwashed but) okay and everyone will be much happier when Cuba can get rid of this ghastly socialism and rejoin the civilised free world as a US client state. I could suggest Haiti as a model to explore in her next diaries.

[Judy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a very slow telling of everyday life, but everyday life usually is slow; not much happens in everyday life that is exciting or riveting or heart pounding...it's just there. Isadora Tattlin, her husband Nick & their two children, Thea and Jimmy, all move to Cuba in 1993 when Nick receives a job transfer. Life is somewhat different in Cuba than it is in other parts of the world that this family has lived in. True, they do get to live in a mansion, have a staff of eight people to take care of them, but they also have to contend with shortages, or unavailable, foodstuffs, flour, sugar, milk, eggs, bread, cheese. Isadora resolves this dilemma with occasional trips to Miami, where she takes empty suitcases and returns with all kinds of things-parts for toasters, medicines, plastic bags for sandwiches, etc. Life in Cuba is not easy, especially if you are Cuban. I found this book to be rather slow, informative, but very slow.

[Jonda Beattie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think one of the reasons I really enjoyed this book is that I have just returned from a trip to Cuba. I could see the places Isodara was describing. I had been in those shops, those buildings, those squares, those restaurants. I had heard described the different ways items were purchased and the tightrope people walked when trying to get items for their homes and businesses. I enjoyed her description of trying to run a household while trying to stay in sync with Cuban customs and policies. It reminded me of how a friend went through the same process while living in Bogotá. This book was written about a time earlier but much is still the same.

[Marianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoughtful and open hearted. Transparent, sometimes to the point of causing the reader to wince at the author's perspective, especially from the remove of 30ish years away.

CN: discussions of large scale racism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, and exploitation, sometimes including use of actual slurs (including the N word) to report and criticize others' offensive speech. Also, rarely, what looked to me to be some apparently unwitting microaggression-level examples of some of these in the author's own narration.

[Ronnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was first published in 2002. I visited Cuba in November 2001, so I was very interested to read about the author's experiences and insights during that time period. So much was familiar and so much not, since my visit was short and she and her family lived there for 3 years. I loved her style, her humor, her honesty and her heartfelt descriptions of her family's life in Cuba. This book was a fun read for me.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I cannot tell you why I liked this book. It was amusing and I didn’t have to think about a thing… except quandary over X-ian country. Hmmm… where are they from. I appreciate the candor that sadly lends itself to transparency of the Cuban state which further lends itself to counting my blessing of being American.

If someone were to ask for a book about nothing yet insightful into the complexities of another culture I would recommend this one.

[Dkwallpdx · Rating 4 out of 5]

Getting ready for a trip to Cuba next month. Fascinating read of life during the 90's which was the special period when Russia stopped funding Cuba. Life was hard. This businessman's wife recounts their family life in Cuba over 4 years. Really interesting especially if you are thinking of going to Cuba.

[Shirley · Rating 5 out of 5]

The good, the bad and the ugly on Cuba! An American woman who is the wife of a European businessman tells the story of living in Cuba for 4 years with her family during the 1990s. If you ever wanted to know what Cuba is really like - this is the book to read! Fascinating!

[Bo · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read it so as to get more familiar with Cuba in preparation for upcoming travel. The author has some interesting material to work with, but it's not nearly as developed as it could have been. Left me wanting a lot more substance.