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The Boys from Dolores: Fidel Castro's Schoolmates from Revolution to Exile (Vintage Departures)
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About The Boys From Dolores: Fidel Castro's Schoolmates
Product Description From the author of Chasing Che, here is the remarkable tale of a group of boys at the heart of Cuba's political and social history. Chosen in the 1940s from among the most affluent and ambitious families in eastern Cuba, they were groomed at the elite Colegio de Dolores for achievement and leadership. Instead, they were swept into war, revolution, and exile by two of their own number, Fidel and Raúl Castro. Trained by Jesuits for dialectical dexterity and the pursuit of absolutes, Fidel Castro swiftly destroyed the old Cuba they had come from, down to the hallways of Dolores itself. At once sweeping and intimate, this remarkable history by Patrick Symmes is a tour de force investigation of the world that gave birth to Fidel Castro – and the world his Cuban Revolution leaves behind. Review "An atmospheric, richly evocative history of modern Cuba. . . . Mr. Symmes digs like a reporter and writes like a novelist."— The New York Times Book Review"Symmes is . . . a superb journalist. His interviews with the Dolorinos form a priceless archive of the Cuban diaspora and argue for the importance of the storyteller's art." — The Washington Post"Vividly original. ” — The Boston Globe"What [Symmes] has is heart, and his observations are on the money. A travel writer, Symmes delivers a muscular prose and a keen sense of detail." — The Miami Herald About the Author Patrick Symmes is the author of Chasing Che and writes for Harper’s, Outside, New York, and Condé Nast Traveler. He lives in New York City. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Miami Springs“This has been a difficult year for the Sad Ones,” Pedro Haber said, but before he could continue, there was a metallic purr, which grew quickly into a feedback loop. The sound squawked over the ballroom, a room full of wrinkled men in brown suits and ageless women in immovable bouffants. Pedro tried to continue. He said, “Four who regularly attend these reunions have fallen, God has them in all his glor—”But he was cut off now, fatally. The screech made even a busboy put down his bread rolls and cover his ears. A devilish skeeeeeeeTWAAAAAAAAAweeeeeeSKEEEEE refracted off the rented glassware and the golf club plates, a piercing white noise like a fax machine in your head. Old, trembling hands rose reaching for hearing aids.Pedro, class of ’59, stood calmly and stared at the microphone. One more betrayal in a lifetime of disappointments.SKWEEEEEEEEEE-BWAAAAAAAAAA-SOOOOOOOOOO.Pedro ran the reunions because he was the most stalwart, reliable, and capable of the men from the old days. But this was exactly why he disliked being called on to manage things, yet again. He was a friend to everyone. He did nothing to deserve this. Stress was bad for a man his age. But duty was duty: at sixty-two years of age, he was one of the younger men in the room.Unplug. Fiddle with knobs. Move cables. Start over. Forget to replug. Replug. Readjust knobs. Tap tap. “Can everyone hear me?” He was back in business. But nobody, all night, could handle the microphone. Not even the singer.Pedro Haber didn’t actually start by saying that it was “a difficult year for the Sad Ones.” He had said that it was a difficult year for the Dolorinos. The word is rooted in dolor, meaning “pain, ache; sadness, grief.” When Pedro said Los Dolorinos it sounded like all of those things, a world of aching and grieving, the ones who suffer. But it had another meaning, for these were the men who, as boys, came from a happy place. Dolores was their old school, the Catholic academy, run by Jesuits. The Colegio de Dolores where they had all met had been a boarding school in eastern Cuba, once upon a time. The sadness had come later.Everyone in the room, from the busboys on up, spoke the twin languages of this nation-within-a-nation. But not everyone is equally ambidextrous, and thought and speech leapt between Cuba and the United States. At the far right of the room, near the entrance, was a
