When one is in the hands of such a capable reporter and writer of sparkling prose that Joan Didion is, one expects to be entertained and informed about the subject that she is treating. And so it goes with Joan Didion's masterpiece of 1987, entitled "Miami." Opening as a traditional bit of reporting on Miami in the 1980s, Didion's book here treats the Liberty City riots, the changing demographics of the city after Castro's revolution, and the social norms of the 56% of the population that is Hispanic. In this section one is treated to a portrait which is acutely accurate and filled with the writerly details that make Didion such a master of the genre. However, the book soon turns its attention to the "underground" narrative of the tangled web that connects the firebrand anti-Castroists who inhabit the city with the organs of government centered around another American city, Washington D.C. Here Didion pulls no punches in exploring the faults of both of these actors in the often deadly dance of politics, Latin-American style, that is played in both of those metropolises. Connections to the Church hearings on CIA sponsored assassination attempts and possible links between anti-Castro militants and the assassination of John F. Kennedy play a large role in the narrative there. But wait, it doesn't end there, for the 1980s saw a renewed effort to bring "freedom" to leftist ruled dominions. The Reagan administration and its enablers, Al Haig and Oliver North most prominently, play their part in the underground, clandestine politics through groups such as the "White House Outreach Group on Central America" and other nefarious institutions. Didion links this more recent development finely to the whole history of anti-communist crusades in this region, leaving the reader shaking his or her head at the capacity for all to forget the lessons of history. Some may say that this is ancient history, that communism is dead and Central America is free. However, nowadays the U.S. is engaged in a new secret war that, as recent revelations point out, too may be fertile grounds for "blowback" and other unintended consequences. And, of course, when one reads Didion, on is in the hands of a genius of prose and reportage, so our efforts are always rewarded with joy and a fantastic sense of discovery. "Miami" is a portal to discovery about that fabled city and the whole of politics in the 1980s, making for a grand book well worth the effort to read it.

Who caaaaares

I watched Joan Didion's May 7th, 2000 " In Depth" interview with Connie Brod on Book TV.org, last night, an interview that I had seen as it occurred. I wanted to see her comments regarding her book, " Miami", along with her responses then to the many call in questions of her multiple books. This book , "Miami" was copywritten in 1987. When asked why she had written this book, her reply was" I thought America's future was on the Southern border, the interface with the Caribbean , with Latin America." Prescience.
The book starts " On the August night in 1933 when General Gerardo Machado, then President of Cuba, flew out of Havana into exile...." It concludes with a statement from the 40th President of the United States on May 15, 1987. It is an excellent, thoroughly researched book about exilios, revolucionarios, la lucha, el dialogo, quince, to name but a few things. It includes, and focuses specifically, on two Presidents, Kennedy, and Reagan , and events related to them.
Chapter five , for me, was quite interesting. " On the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Dade County, in February of 1986, the Miami Herald asked four prominent amateurs of local history to name ' the ten people and the ten events that had the most impact on the county's history." A few of the people were: Julia Tuttle, Henry Flagler ( the Florida East Coast Railway), Alexander Orr ( started the research that saved Miami's drinking water from salt), John Pennekamp, ( fathered the Everglades National Park ), Dr. James Jackson, an early Miami physician, ( Jackson Memorial?), Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, the Governor of Florida who initiated the draining of the Everglades. " When it came to naming the Ten Most Important ' Events', as opposed to 'People', all four panelists mentioned the arrival of the Cubans..."

Kiinnostava kirja! Kiinnostava Miami! Samalla tässä tuli niin paljon nimiä ja uusi ihmisiä tiheällä syötöllä, että välillä piti pinnistellä pysyäkseen kärryillä. Mutta kuten Didion toteaa, ”any single Miami story, moreover, was hard to follow”.

Premessa importante : volevo leggere qualcosa di Joan Didion e questo libro mi è capitato tra le mani per caso, senza sapere nemmeno di cosa parlasse.
Mi aspettavo qualcosa di romanzato ma mi sono trovato di fronte ad un saggio giornalistico ultra dettagliato, pieno di nomi, date e città.
Quindi riconosco sia estremamente interessante ma non era quel che stavo cercando e per questo mi è pesato abbastanza.
A questo punto mi chiedo anche se tutti i libri della Didion siano su questo stampo o se c'è qualcosa di più adatto ai miei interessi ...

Invisible population. You have not converted a man because you have silenced him. Empty Washington gestures.

I think I prefer Joan Didion personal essays.

Took me a year to finish this because Ms girl is THOROUGH and I could only read like 20 pages at a time before getting overwhelmed. Like the amount of specific names and dates in this goes insane. Also she loves a run-on sentence. Which I’m not knocking at all, it’s just a lot. Love that she’s a genius though and doesn’t ever dumb anything down like she’s not explaining background info and she’s not holding your hand through it. Didion’s non-fiction just has the vibe of “The girls that get it, get it and the girls that don’t, don’t.” She cooked the Reagan administration which was awesome. Slay Joan my pretentious queen

One of the best books written about Miami. She nails The Miami Herald and the Cuban community.

3.5 stars!

“Havana vanities come to dust in Miami” is an incredible opening line and really set the tone for this book.

“I never passed through security for a flight to Miami without experiencing a certain weightlessness, the heightened wariness or having left the developed world for a more fluid atmosphere, one in which the native trust of extreme possibilités that tended to ground the temperate United States in an obeisance to democratic institutions seemed rooted, if at all, only shallowly.”

“In this mood Miami seemed not a city at all but a tale, a romance of the tropics, a kind of waking dream in which any possibility could and would be accommodated.” YES!!!! Yes yes yes yes so much yes. This is such a unique way to describe Miami and really encompasses the general tone of the city in one sentence.

“You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.”

“‘Let me tell you something’ one of them said. They talk about ‘Cuban terrorists.’The guys they call ‘Cuban terrorists’ are the guys they trained.”

As I said in my Salvador review, it is important to note that Joan Didion is a white woman from California stepping into a world vastly different from her own. In spite of this, and what I love about her work, is her ability to bring her razor sharp writing and articulation to any situation. Another great read.

A volte la vita è proprio strana: iniziavo a leggere questo libro il 23 dicembre 2019 per concluderlo il giorno dopo.
Era nel tempo per-Sars-Cov2, a poche settimane dallo scoppio della pandemia (in Cina era già iniziato tutto).

Oggi, 23 dicembre 2021, due anni esatti dopo, apprendo della notizia della morte di quella che considero una delle più grandi scrittrici.

Due anni fa vivevo ancora a Padova e ricordo che questo fu uno dei primi libri che iniziai ad audioleggere.

In questo saggio culturale, Joan Didion usa le dinamiche politiche di Miami e del Sud della Florida come lente per investigare e analizzare le politiche statunitensi a Cuba (durante gli anni di Kennedy) e in America Centrale (durante gli anni di Reagan).

“Ma, più di ogni altra cosa, gli americani mancano di «passione». Questa in fondo era la carenza principale da cui scaturivano tutte le altre pecche nazionali. Se chiedevo un esempio di questa mancanza di passione, mi veniva spesso detto che bastava notare lo scarso apprezzamento che avevano per la lucha, la lotta.”

Joan Didion, con lo stile che le è proprio, scava oltre quella patina luccicante che avvolgeva questa città, per andare al cuore della verità:
“Non si trattava della generica lamentela della comunità degli esuli nei confronti di un governo che avrebbe potuto far propria la loro lotta e che invece non lo aveva fatto. Si trattava di qualcosa di molto più specifico: il governo in questione aveva sì abbracciato la lucha, ma solo per soddisfare il proprio interesse, e in ciò gli esuli vedevano un disegno di tradimento che poteva essere ripercorso a ritroso attraverso ben sei amministrazioni. Secondo questo disegno, per il loro modo di vedere, gli Stati Uniti sostenevano e incoraggiavano regolarmente azioni ribelli da parte degli esuli salvo poi, quando questi fatti diventavano imbarazzanti o comunque non in armonia con i messaggi inviati da Washington in quel frangente, scaricare senza tanti complimenti gli esuli coinvolti e qualche volta addirittura – dal momento che la lucha era per sua natura essenzialmente illegale – perseguitarli; in altre parole, li addestravano per il fallimento.”

E lei ci ha insegnato che: “Le parole hanno una conseguenza, e tutte le storie hanno una fine. NICARAGUA OGGI, CUBA DOMANI.”

E che a Cuba non cresceva il C-4 e che “le decisioni prese a Washington potessero ripercuotersi altrove, all’effetto di risonanza di alcune idee e alle loro relative conseguenze.”

Being born in Miami around the time this book was written, its characters have always blown in and out of consciousness as if on a tropical breeze. Nothing holds fast - not the stories or people - everything moving, slippery, like the tide.

Joan Didion was able to mold her journalistic prowess into that rhythm - with prose that move as a fever dream. And I read it just the same - unable to put it down, until all of a sudden it was over in less than 24 hours.

Now, not only have I learned something more about my Miami, but I have a felt sense of what it was, what it is, and where the dominoes might fall this time. In this place where "stories tend to have endings".

An insightful and revealing look at the Cuban exile community in Miami in the early 1980s.