∎ [PDF] Take Me with You A Memoir Carlos Frías 9781416559511 Books

Take Me with You A Memoir Carlos Frías 9781416559511 Books

Download As PDF : Take Me with You A Memoir Carlos Frías 9781416559511 Books

Take Me with You A Memoir Carlos Frías 9781416559511 Books

This is a well-written and very moving book. The newly-developing connections between family members across a 90 mile body of water give poignant life to "Take Me With You."

The secondary story, and to my mind, the most important part, is that the book lets a breathe of fresh air into America's view of a sealed country. I was particularly struck by the two-faced nature of Castro's Cuba. The Cuba seen by tourists is a stage set.

The houses on Elian Gonzale's street are painted and repaired so news casts shown in the rest of the world will present a nice image of Cuba. The infrastructure and houses in the neighborhoods of the ordinary folks are crumbling and decaying. The facade continues with churches, hotels and restaurants that only tourists are allowed to visit.

The deprivations in terms of meat, medical supplies and adequate modern sewer systems is inexcusable, and Frias's expressed need of protecting his Cuban cousins by using fictive names is tragic. The neighborhood watch that squeals on its neighbors and the author's fear that his journals will be found in his suitcase are chilling.

This book by a Cuban-American will make the reader more appreciative of life in the United States and of the resilience of every day Cubans who must "go along to get along."

This book is an excellent companion piece to "This is Cuba" by Ben Corbett. Both books will leave you amazed and angry.

Kim Burdick
Stanton, Delaware


Tags : Take Me with You: A Memoir [Carlos Frías] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Traces the journalist author's visit to Cuba forty years after his father was exiled, a twelve-day experience during which he covered Fidel Castro's illness and observed the considerable disparities between his family's country of origin and the American world in which he was raised. 40,Carlos Frías,Take Me with You: A Memoir,Atria Books,1416559515,903437692,Cuba;Description and travel.,Cuba;Social conditions;21st century.,Cuban Americans;Cuba;Biography.,Biography,Biography & Autobiography,Biography & Autobiography Editors, Journalists, Publishers,Biography & Autobiography Personal Memoirs,Biography & Autobiography Political,Biography Autobiography,BiographyAutobiography,Cuba,Cuban Americans,DESCRIPTION AND TRAVEL,Editors, Journalists, Publishers,Family,Frâias, Carlos,GENERAL,General Adult,HISPANIC AMERICANS IN THE U.S.,Non-Fiction,Personal Memoirs,Political,Travel,United States

Take Me with You A Memoir Carlos Frías 9781416559511 Books Reviews

I bought this book because I left Cuba in 1962, and I still have family there whom I miss very much. This book reminded me of what a place our memories and our families have in our sense of identity and self-worth. Cubans have suffered much, and we will never get over it, nor will our children. I was happy to see that the Frias family instilled a sense of love for those left behind (even for those whose views are opposite from ours). I feared for those Frias' friends and relatives as I read this book, because I know they have to live with the consequences of what we say here. I know I would not in a million years have written a book like this about people who are still in Cuba. They pay the consequences of what we say, and we do not. The author says he took precautions, I hope they were effective. Having been born here, I doubt he has a true idea of how very dangerous it is for them. But I do thank the author for reminding me that I am not the only one who once lost everything that had given meaning and love to my life. Those losses can never be recovered.
Amazing memoir of a voyage to discover ancestral homeland roots for the son of a Cuban exile family. It captured the complexities of my psyche as if I were in the author's conundrums on his journey. Being that I too am a 1st generation American, son of Cuban exiles in this country I could totally relate and feel raw and powerful emotions reading this story. The book of his journey through some of modern Cuba is at times heartbreaking, funny, compelling and poignant. Overall though it was a joy to read when it was released and I just read it again.
This memoir is the most unabashedly emotional I've ever read. At times, I thought it was too emotional ( therefore four stars not five); but it hooked me despite--or maybe because of--the author's heartfelt writing.

This is a true story of family, known and unknown previously, left behind in Cuba. But, of course, it's more. It's really the story of Cuba since Castro. And, before Castro, too. All is told through family members' stories. ( And, it's a huge exended family!) Because this is such a personal tale, we feel along with the author, an American born here into a Cuban-American family.

The author, in a twelve day trip to Cuba, cannot decide whether his heart belongs to his Cuban family or to his family in the U.S. ( He has a very hard time not getting enmeshed in his Cuban family's lives. They need him, and they idolize him. And, vice-versa, too. ) A good deal of Frias' sadness in Cuba is a kind of "survivor guilt", a feeling that he has it so good here, and they, in Cuba, are struggling. There's only so much he can do!

It's clear that the visit with his relatives and to know Cuba from a non-tourist viewpoint has changed the author. Maybe it's changed us, the readers, too.
I thought this was a very good book if you want to know about the lives of everyday Cubans in the Havana area of Cuba. Politics aside, I read this type of book for what I can learn about the real Cuba and the lives of average Cubans. What Cuba needed in the 50's when the Batista ruled was real democratic reform. What they got instead was Fidel Castro....without question a much worse fate. Cubans have had to live with the daily lies and broken promises for more than 50 years of the Castro regime. Predictably, over the years, many Cubans have gone over to the "revolution side" in order to somewhat better their own lives as they sell out their neighbors' rights and personal freedoms.

But gladly, this is not a book about politics, or about whether the Castro brothers regime is bad as they appear to be or if the US is the "big bad wolf" that they would have everyone in Cuba believe.

Instead, the book is about an author's awakening into another world that his family's past and present. Most Americans who have not traveled much outside the US have only a fuzzy picture of what other countries are really like on an everyday basis, particularly a third-world country like Cuba. This book is a revelation into the lives of one particular extended family, who for the most part are not part of the party privileged in modern day Cuba. Although a heart-warming account of one man's rebirth or reconnection to his roots in another country, if not another world, to me the insights and short accounts of everyday life and glimpses of Cuban life provide the most interesting part of the book.
This is a well-written and very moving book. The newly-developing connections between family members across a 90 mile body of water give poignant life to "Take Me With You."

The secondary story, and to my mind, the most important part, is that the book lets a breathe of fresh air into America's view of a sealed country. I was particularly struck by the two-faced nature of Castro's Cuba. The Cuba seen by tourists is a stage set.

The houses on Elian Gonzale's street are painted and repaired so news casts shown in the rest of the world will present a nice image of Cuba. The infrastructure and houses in the neighborhoods of the ordinary folks are crumbling and decaying. The facade continues with churches, hotels and restaurants that only tourists are allowed to visit.

The deprivations in terms of meat, medical supplies and adequate modern sewer systems is inexcusable, and Frias's expressed need of protecting his Cuban cousins by using fictive names is tragic. The neighborhood watch that squeals on its neighbors and the author's fear that his journals will be found in his suitcase are chilling.

This book by a Cuban-American will make the reader more appreciative of life in the United States and of the resilience of every day Cubans who must "go along to get along."

This book is an excellent companion piece to "This is Cuba" by Ben Corbett. Both books will leave you amazed and angry.

Kim Burdick
Stanton, Delaware