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The Boys from Dolores: Fidel Castro's Classmates from Revolution to Exile | 
 enlarge | Author: Patrick Symmes
Publisher: Pantheon
Category: Book
List Price: $26.95
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Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 177592
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 368
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.4
ISBN: 0375422838
Dewey Decimal Number: 972.91064
EAN: 9780375422836
ASIN: 0375422838
Publication Date: July 10, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Good reading copy. May have slight scratches on cover. Overall very good condition. Orders processed and shipped within 24 hours. Choose EXPEDITED for fast delivery.
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Product Description
From the author of Chasing Che, the remarkable tale of a group of boys at the heart of Cuba's political and social history. The Boys from Dolores illuminates the elite island society from which Fidel Castro and his brother Raul emerged.
The Colegio de Dolores was a Jesuit boarding school in Santiago, Cuba's rich and ancient second city, where Fidel and Raul were educated in the 1930s and '40s. Patrick Symmes begins his story here, tracking down dozens of Fidel's schoolmates glimpsed in a single period photograph. And it is through their stories--their time at the Colegio; the catastrophic effects of the revolution on their lives; their fates since--that Symmes opens a door onto a Cuba, and a time in Castro’s life, that have been deliberately obscured from us. Here too is the elusive Raul Castro, a cipher destined to rule Cuba in Fidel’s place.
We see Castro in his formative youth, an adolescent ruling the classrooms of the Colegio and running in the streets of Santiago. Symmes traces the years in which the revolution was conceived, won, and lost, describing the changes it wrought in Santiago and in the lives of Fidel’s own classmates: we follow them through the maelstrom of the 1960s, as most fight to leave Cuba and a few stay behind. And here, in Santiago today, Symmes finds Castro’s most lasting achievement, the creating and sustaining of a myth-soaked revolutionary idealism amid the harshest realities of daily life.
Wholly original in its approach, The Boys from Dolores is a powerfully evocative, eye-opening portrait of Cuba--and of the Castro brothers--in the twentieth century.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 Pretty Good December 2, 2008
R. Wiggum (Miami, FL)
When I first started reading this book, I was skeptical about the author because he was of European descent. However, not only did he prove to be an expert on Cuban culture and history but he also had many interesting viewpoints of his own about Cuba pre and post revolution.
I enjoyed learning about the stories of all of Fidel's classmates and how they were the people most affected by his extreme socialist policies. I also appreciated the amount of travel the author did to get all his interviews. I recommend it to anyone looking to learn more about Cuba's past and present.
 Garbage concealed as great literature... November 16, 2008
J. Font (Nutley, NJ USA)
The Boys from Dolores is perfect for those who know nothing about Cuban history, and the social and political re-engineering that has taken place there in the last 50 years.
The book does an excellent job at disgising its revisionist aims, by inserting itself as an object of dialog for New York Times Book Review followers. It passes as a well researched semi-scholarly work relying on the memories of Castro classmates. The problem is that the historical foundations and underlying "ideology" of the book are skewed and in my opinion purposefully deceiving. Do not read this book thinking, as others claim, that you will get a real objective perspective of the historical reasons why Castro and Cuba took the turns and twists they did 50 years ago. The author is a very poor historian, but a good packager and promoter of books!
Cuba as seen by Castro's schoolmates October 14, 2008
Stephen Harlen (philly)
Absorbing study of a Jesuit boy's school at which the Castro boys were students. The point of view is that of his fellow classmates and others who attended the school. It's a tribute to a now forbidden school regimen. The book details the post Dolores lives of many of the graduates both in the US Cuba and elsewhere. Of general interest as we approach the post- Fidel era.
Recent Cuba May 31, 2008
Loves the View (Hawaii)
The book began with somewhat of an attitude. One of the exiles "wallowed in history like a boy in a mud bog", another "cackles gleefully", and others "unashamedly shook hands" (why be ashamed to shake hands?). I almost put it down, but I'm glad I didn't. A lot of meat, and some very good writing follows.
The book is one part travelog, one part recent Cuban history and one part the story of Castro's classmates at the exclusive Jesuit school. Some of "the boys" supported Castro and his revolution before they fought against him. History is intertwined with descriptions of rations, baseball games and streetscapes.
The stories of the "boys" are the stories of the upheaval. Some smelled to coffee right away and left. Others were jolted out as they saw their liberties and property falling away. Some, like Kiki de Jongh remain for reasons that are very unclear.
I wonder how this author has slipped in and out of Cuba, as he says, for 11 years. He clearly knows the turf, and can write of the changing moods and landscapes. He has fereted out some oral histories inside of and outside of Cuba that add to the literature available to be sifted by future historians. It seems that Symmes knows some of the interviewees quite well. Presumably he has more extensive tapes and notes that I hope will someday be donated to a research institution.
In the final pages Symmes gives some ideas about what could happen after Castro's death.
I think a good editor could make this a 5 star book. The first 50 pages or so need some work. Throughout, some phrases could be metaphors or statements, it's hard to tell and some ideas are introduced in a way that you might not catch that the topic is changing (and go back to find what you missed). Pictures, even blow ups from the cover photo, would be a good addition and for the general reader, a map is needed.
The title is deceiving. I don't think this book was originally intended to be about the "boys". For instance, the author is given 2 addresses for one alumni, and dutifully mails the envelopes. If this were actually about alums, he would have pursued him and other leads.
Cuba/Castro/America February 25, 2008
Christian Schlect (Yakima, Washington/USA)
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
Recommended for one searching for insights and background to the Cuba of the past fifty years. This is not a straight history, or a policy article, or a personal travel memoir but a combination of all these and more, woven around one Cuban private school and the lives of some of its students, one of whom being Fidel Castro. Patrick Symmes is a talented writer.
I am not an expert on the history of the revolution or of the Bay of Pigs, but having been once to Havana the parts of this story pertaining to present day Cuba ring true to me.
This book is most relevant as this review is posted. The New York Times reports that Raul Castro has taken over as president of Cuba from his ill brother, Fidel Castro, this very day.
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