Fidel's Classmates
Patrick Symmes has a gift for looking at old stories in new ways. Chasing Che, the book he wrote after he followed Che Guevara's motorcycle route around South America, was brilliant. And now he has outdone himself with The Boys from Dolores, Fidel Castro's Classmates from Revolution to Exile. This book is really a retelling of the well-known recent history of Cuba, but told in such an up close and personal way, through interviews with Castro's classmates, that it is fascinating. Symmes is a deft interviewer and reporter. Sometimes I wish he would let his own personality come through a little more. At one point in the book he expresses dispair over how Latin America will ever show real progress. The Cuban model obviously does not work, but the more raw capitalism of the nearby Dominican Republican has also had awful consequences. That small criticism notwithstanding, I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in reading about Latin America, or to anyone who simply likes good nonfiction.