A tasty review of The Skinny Years

Author Roger Besu

Roger Besu is an exile of my generation, born in Cuba and raised in Miami during the sixties and seventies. He is also the author of a definitive book on Cuban cuisine, Cuban Cooking 101.

I did not know Roger growing up. We met as mature adults. So I wondered if he would connect with my fourth novel set in Miami during the sixties. Roger's review of The Skinny Years left this author feeling heartened that the story resonated as authentic with someone whose experiences mirrored my own.

REVIEW OF THE SKINNY YEARS

by Roger Besu, author of Cuban Cooking 101

I started to read this book with the idea that I was going to encounter a chronicle or a biography. What I found was a ride through memory lane – a trip that reaches into the fantasies created by the author about the many encounters of the characters he describes in a family forced into exile from La Habana to Miami. The legend of the Delgado family takes place at the beginning from the sixties when the wave of the Diaspora began and thousands fled the oppressive new regime brought by the Castro brothers and their cohorts. But, the story is not so much about politics but about the serious business of young immigrants coming to the Melting Pot of America and trying to survive in the new environment. 

"There is exhilaration, funny moments and the hard reality, all described in this very witty novel with a delicate touch by a master writer."

You will find in the lives described, as in many lives, those brilliant moments and those very somber, but in between there are many neutral zones. There is exhilaration, funny moments and the hard reality, all described in this very witty novel with a delicate touch by a master writer. You will laugh, cry, remember and find that you can actually understand what it is to find a new life in a new country. The immigrant, be it Cuban, or from whatever background you come from, will find incomparable affinity and rapport with the characters.  

This is a very timely book for those who not only are interested in the history of the Cuban exiles of the sixties, but of the history of immigrants in general in America. A true work of literary license, which is much more interesting than a chronicle  or biography, I say. 

Roger Besu