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Take Me With You

By Sarah Peasley Miller, Special to the Rocky

Published December 25, 2008 at 7 p.m.

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* Nonfiction. By Carlos Frias. Atria Books, $25. Grade: B+

Book in a nutshell: Frias was a sportswriter with the Miami Herald when his Spanish-language skills earned him a trip to Cuba in 2006 - part of a team the paper dispatched to report life on the ground for 10 days in the wake of Fidel Castro's grave illness.

But Frias had another, more personal project planned: visiting the relatives and friends his parents talked about constantly. "Take me with you," his father said when Carlos told him of his sudden, impending trip, his first to the island of 12 million that his parents had not seen since they left 40 years earlier.

Once safely inside the country as a "tourist," Frias finds the city square in Marianao where his father and his brothers were much-loved business owners. Surrounded with the acrid odor of sewage and rotting vegetables, he sees splintered, rotted tenement doors and rubble where children play soccer, but no remaining sign of his father's cafe. It is the first of many indications the world his parents clung to was no more.

Aunts, cousins, and friends like Rosita, whose connection to the Communist party frightens him, and Alina, his uncle's former girlfriend, who retains a mysterious attachment to the family, greet him warmly. With each visit, he finds unrelenting longing for those who left, and for the time before the revolution sparked an exodus and divided families.

Best tidbit: Despite the ubiquitous poverty, the reassuring sound of a coffee maker greets him in every home. "Coffee is therapy . . . the only thing Cubans have that they can offer (freely)."

Pros: Frias' story is one of an ordinary family shaped by extraordinarily sad and unusual events. He skillfully weaves politics and Cuban culture into intimate family tales, and even uncovers family secrets.

Cons: Every chapter, more relatives! It sounds like Frias couldn't leave anyone out, no matter how tangential, without risking hurting their feelings, and he lists more than 50 characters in the back of the book as a kind of reader cheat sheet.

Final word: Vividly descriptive and highly emotional, Frias' account will please those who know Cuban history, as well as the uninformed.

Correction: Carlos Frias writes for The Palm Beach Post, not the Miami Herald. We regret the error.