Cuba On The Verge
 Terry McCoy, Editor
 (Reviewed by The Editor - Rebecca Brown)
 2003 Bulfinch Press
 ISBN: 0821228021
 

An island in transition. A portrait of the complexities of modern Cuban life.

A huge & quietly engrossing collection of essays & pictures by leading Cuban & American writers & photographers, offering unprecedented insights into life in this fabled island nation.

Come into another world where time seems to have stood still. Where lovely houses, like lovely old women, linger as relics of youthful beauty. Where a quietness pervades, quite unknown in the bustling burgs of our nation. Where genteel poverty & startling wealth mingle in unremarked company.

Poems & essays from exiles who returned for a short academic cross-cultural visit--memories of lost childhoods, the magical myths, the sorrow of decay, with a rage simmering beneath the nostalgic surface.

The photographs tell volumes, look deep at them, for they offer glimpses into a way of life unique upon this globe--beauty without pretention, poverty without violence, wealth without ostentation.

If you have ever wondered what Cuba looks like, its ordinary people, its landscape, houses, towns, countryside. What people wear & do & where they live, & all the abandoned glory of its wealthy past, then Cuba On The Verge will fill that hunger, soothe that loss.

William Kennedy, a newsman in Miami writing about Cuba since the 1950s, is going to go there for the first time. In his Introduction his excitement is palpable. He's going to Cuba, the “incipient phoenix, an exotic ambiguity...one of the major social experiments of the twentieth century...” (P.7) He gives statistics of dollars & tourists & asks & answers questions, even I have asked! Do Americans & Cubans really understand each other? No one can write about Cuba without bringing up the US's 50 plus years of trade embargo. William Kennedy answers such political questions as: “Who wants to keep the bloody thing?”

In conclusion William Kennedy writes: “This is a book of variations on desperation, a collection of photographic images of great subtlety and power that make time visible through ruins and flesh, and, together with the wise, often confessional insights of its writers, suggest the saddening scope of lost life in Cuba.” (P.13)

One set of images is delivered via the camera obscura, wherein the photographer created a dark chamber with a lens or opening through which an image is projected in natural colors onto an opposite surface. Thus two scenes are seen--the walls of rooms with upside views through the windows of the city. Fascinating!

• I especially relished these:
• Antonio José Ponte's “What am I doing here?”--a thinking man looking out to a greater world.
• Manuel Piña's wall images of Time.
• Reina Maria Rodriguez's The Fair in Faith Park--a collage of impressions of a crowded, costumed festival.
• Pablo Medina's A Brief History of Exile--wherein a Cuban defines his identity.
• Carrie Mae Weems' poem & photos Ritual and Revolution.
• Abelardo Morell's Cuba from a Dark Room.
• Eduardo Luis Rodriguez's lively tirade about Coming Home: Reflections of a Casual Stroller, or The Dilemma of Architectural Preservation in Cuba, with Carlos Garaicoa's accompanying photos of ruins.
• Andrew Moore's elegiac images of the Valley of the Sugar Mills.
& all the rest, each delighting me, depending upon my mood--about women struggling for love & beauty; the music of Cuba, focusing on Chucho Valdés; the faces of change; the classes of Cuba; born too late for the revolution; landscapes & mythology; a Cuban comes home; letters from exile.

Arthur Miller's Epilogue is rich in impressions & American points of view of an encounter with The Leader, President Fidel Castro, at a dinner. It brings to conclusion an elegant patchwork of passion & pain.

Editor Terry McCoy has included highly readable biographies of the contributing writers & photographers, who deserve mention:
Writers:
Jon Lee Anderson; Russell Banks; Avilio Estévez; Abelarde Estorino; Cristina Garcia; Pablo Medina; Ana Menéndez; Mayra Montero; Nancy Morejón; Achy Obejas; Susan Orlean; Hugo Perez; Antonio José Ponte; Eduardo Luis Rodriguez & Reina Maria Rodriguez.
Photographers:
Niurka Barroso; Ernesto Bazan; Virginia Beahan; Carlos Garaicoa; Kastia Garcia Fayat; Abigail Gonzáles; Andrew Moore; Inge Morath; Abelardo Morell; René Peña; Manuel Piña; Silvia Plachy; Adalberto Roque; Fazal Sheikh & Carrie Mae Weems.

Terry McCoy is a New York editor, arts producer, curator, & documentary filmaker. Her award-winning works have appeared in books, on PBS & cable TV.
(06/29/03)

Rebecca