Synopses & Reviews
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 far without success. It is where the bitter opera of Cuban exile intersects with the cynicism of U.S. foreign policy. It is a city whose skyrocketing murder rate is fueled by the cocaine trade, racial discontent, and an undeclared war on the island ninety miles to the south.
As Didion follows Miami's drift into a Third World capital, she also locates its position in the secret history of the Cold War, from the Bay of Pigs to the Reagan doctrine and from the Kennedy assassination to the Watergate break-in. Miami is not just a portrait of a city, but a masterly study of immigration and exile, passion, hypocrisy, and political violence.
Review
"Her prose is so finely tuned to paranoia that it persuades without validating....But it's more with the mood of her prose than its facts that Ms. Didion has turned so much sunny light into a murky underwater darkness full of sharks and evil shadows." Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times
Review
"Miami is a kaleidoscope of impressions, and a litany of violence, intrigue, vengeance, and political manipulation, and broken dreams." Boston Globe
Review
"As in her earlier Salvador, Didion brings the novelist's ear and journalist's eye to her work. The result is a masterful polemic." Library Journal
Review
"The world Ms. Didion describes in beautifully evocative prose is...a world of menace and elliptical connections." James Chace, The New York Times Book Review
Review
"[Didion] has an excellent eye for detail, a sense of the phrase or image that tells the whole story....Miami is an insightful book." The Christian Science Monitor
Synopsis
Miami is not just a portrait of a city, but a masterly study of immigration and exile, passion, hypocrisy, and political violence.
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 far without success. It is where the bitter opera of Cuban exile intersects with the cynicism of U.S. foreign policy. It is a city whose skyrocketing murder rate is fueled by the cocaine trade, racial discontent, and an undeclared war on the island ninety miles to the south.
As Didion follows Miami's drift into a Third World capital, she also locates its position in the secret history of the Cold War, from the Bay of Pigs to the Reagan doctrine and from the Kennedy assassination to the Watergate break-in.
Synopsis
From the bestselling, award-winning author of The Year of Magical Thinking and Let Me Tell You What I Mean--Miami is not just a portrait of a city, but a masterly study of immigration and exile, passion, hypocrisy, and political violence.
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 far without success. It is where the bitter opera of Cuban exile intersects with the cynicism of U.S. foreign policy. It is a city whose skyrocketing murder rate is fueled by the cocaine trade, racial discontent, and an undeclared war on the island ninety miles to the south.
As Didion follows Miami's drift into a Third World capital, she also locates its position in the secret history of the Cold War, from the Bay of Pigs to the Reagan doctrine and from the Kennedy assassination to the Watergate break-in.
About the Author
Joan Didion was born in California and lives in New York. She is the author of five novels and six previous books of nonfiction: Political Fictions, After Henry, Miami, Salvador, The White Album, and Slouching Towards Bethlehem.