Cuba Libre

by Elmore Leonard

[jamiereadthis]

Oh boy. This is a big favorite in a big way. I didn’t even know what I was getting into here and as it dawned on me, those first few chapters, giddy is the word to describe it.* The Spanish-American War. The USS Maine. The hotbed of Cuba in the history according to Elmore Leonard, which means: well, hell yes, gunrunners and cowboys and a prison break and a train heist and warlords and yellow fever and a pretty kick-ass love story. Wrapped up in so much historical accuracy I read a book’s worth of history on the side and learned more about the Cuban revolution than I ever knew from school.

But mostly, this is Elmore Leonard. So we’re running and gunning but he’s showing every side, and everybody here is a schemer, and everybody here is just human, wonderfully so, relievedly so, not particularly noble or evil or honorable or vile but right and wrong in big and small ways regardless. (Well, the Guardias are basically glorified target practice, but in light of events, rightly so.) The stories weave and tangle and twist and turn, and all of them are just my kind of story. Could it be any more my kind of story? Well, yes. But it would have to change its plot and name to The Moonshine War.

*Virgil Webster! Novis Crowe! Ahem. I had to get that out of my system. Of course Virgil (as in, father to Carl, great-grandfather to Ben) is the kid Marine thrown clear of the Maine as she blew. Of course it’s a Crowe from Lake Okeechobee by way of “Newerleans” on the payroll as muscle during the Cuban revolution. Of course. I’d like all my history books adapted thusly, please.