Found This Book Just Too Boring to Finish

King of Cuba by Cristina Garcia
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Could not finish this book; only got to page 88. I, too, grew up in NYC but did not have much contact with Cuban emigres there. Fidel's sister, I think it was, had attended my College a couple of years before me but was invited to leave because of her political activism. I remember Fidel and his party trashing a hotel room in which they had live chickens and I remember the new Cuban arrivals in Miami and the turmoil the local people felt at first with them. So, I was a bit curious about a novel involving a man, a few years older than myself, who had probably come to Florida during those years and his fixation with wanting to destroy the tyrant and return to his homeland before dying.

Unfortunately, I think my lack of real life knowledge of the people, their culture and their language made the book tedious for me to read. I found no humor in the sexual exploits of a man with one foot in the grave--indeed the exploits of two such men. Nor the strange dreams they both have when, as a result of their advanced ages, they are unable to stay awake. Probably, since the author is a multiple literary award winner, others would thoroughly enjoy this book. It is the subject matter and my lack of interest in it, which has resulted in my rating and review.

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