A Cuban Summer
Tony Mendoza, 2013
Capra Press
232 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781592661022
Summary
From confessional to brothel; from The Havana Country Club to Varadero Beach, we follow Tony de la Torre as he comes of age in Cuba during the Summer of 1954.
His family is wealthy and he is raised by servants. Gonzalo, the chauffeur, has the tacit responsibility of teaching 13 year old Tony the facts of life. This is a lively, riotous and sexy novel that gives us glimpses into Cuba before Castro. A great read! (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1941
• Where—Havana, Cuba
• Education—Yale University; Harvard University
• Currently—teaches at Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA
Tony Mendoza was born in Havana, Cuba. He was trained as an engineer (Yale University) and as an architect (Harvard Graduate School of Design.) In the early Seventies he quit architecture, moved into an urban commune in the Boston area, and turned full time to photography as art. His photographs have been exhibited extensively, nationally and internationally.
He was the first photographer exhibited in the New Photography Series at the Museum of Modern Art. His photographs are included in the collections of many museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
He has received three National Endowment for the Arts Photography Fellowships, a Guggenheim Photography Fellowship, and five Ohio Arts Council Fellowships in photography, creative writing, and video. (From the publisher .)
Visit the author's website.
Book Reviews
Forget Ricky Ricardo. Forget Godfather II. Forget Hemingway. If you want to know what it was like to live in Havana during the 1950’s, Tony Mendoza’s absorbing novel is your best guide. Lively, sexy and beautifully written, A Cuban Summer is not only a sensitive (and often hilarious) coming of age tale but a splendid portrait of a culture and a way of life that would soon disappear, perhaps forever. Once I began the novel, I couldn’t put it down.
Gustavo Perez Firmat - author, Life on the Hyphen
Discussion Questions
1. How has Cuban changed from the pre-Castro area?
2. What was the church's role in pre-Castro Cuba?
3. Who taught young men about sex in the wealthy Cuban family in 1956?
4. How did Tony acclimate to life in America?
5. How does this coming of age tale from 1956 compare to today's equivalent in America?
(Questions provided by the author and publisher.)