Overview
With An Innocent in Ireland (1995), David McFadden began his eccentric journeys to the heart of some of the world’s most unique island nations. Now McFadden rambles through the highs and lows of Cuba, home to cigars, Guantanamera, and of course Castro. The beautiful Caribbean landscape, along with Cuba’s rich history, culture, and uncertain future, lend themselves to the quirky eye and wry witticisms of our innocent Canadian guide.Poking into the nation’s many corners, McFadden offers a series of vignettes of the people, cities,villages, roads, and countryside of the island the author refers to as “the most famous little country in the world.” Warm and colourful, An Innocent in Cuba is a musical, sensuous, flirtatious, joyful tribute to the Cuban spirit in all its incarnations.
Synopsis
With An Innocent in Ireland (1995), David McFadden began his eccentric journeys to the heart of some of the world’s most unique island nations. Now McFadden rambles through the highs and lows of Cuba, home to cigars, Guantanamera, and of course Castro. The beautiful Caribbean landscape, along with Cuba’s rich history, culture, and uncertain future, lend themselves to the quirky eye and wry witticisms of our innocent Canadian guide.
Poking into the nation’s many corners, McFadden offers a series of vignettes of the people, cities,villages, roads, and countryside of the island the author refers to as “the most famous little country in the world.” Warm and colourful, An Innocent in Cuba is a musical, sensuous, flirtatious, joyful tribute to the Cuban spirit in all its incarnations.
Library Journal
The latest in Canadian poet McFadden's travel series (An Innocent in Ireland; An Innocent in Scotland), this work recounts McFadden's 33 day-trip around Cuba by taxi or in his well-used compact rental car. He compares the Cuba of 2004 with that of his Canadian friend "A's" experiences from a decade earlier. It's a distracting gimmick, and one wishes he'd stop mentioning "Fidel" and "Che" as if they were old college buddies of his. Far from being an "innocent," McFadden has a bad habit of interjecting historical facts into unrelated situations. And one must question his supposition that "for the past forty-five years Cuba has been a torture-free zone." As a poet, certainly he's aware of documented treatment of dissenting artists and homosexuals? What works in McFadden's favor, however, is how well he interacts with everyday Cuban citizens and his ability to turn a delightful phrase, making some of the most mundane daily occurrences interesting reading material. A poignant moment is when he relives Hemingway's past in the room where Islands in the Stream was supposedly written. Despite its flaws, then, this title is still recommended for large public libraries with devoted travel readers.-Richard Dickey, Dallas Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.