Author: Patrick Lennon 

 ISBN: 1-880941-45-7

 With Fidel Castro’s recent illness and his advanced age, Paradise Lose is a timely story.  It’s the story of the beginning of Castro’s regime, as told from the point of a Cuban-American family.

The story begins with Batista’s cruel reign in Cuba.  We’re given a brief reminder that Cuba has endured one evil dictator after another.  Fidel Castro, with the help of his brother Raul, is trying to raise an army and secure funding to start a revolution.  His followers approach the Molina family in Key West for help.  The Molinas are ambivalent about Castro and about his chances of overthrowing Batista, but they agree to contribute financially. 

When the youngest son, Carlos, takes the money to Castro, he is murdered by Batista’s General Garcia, who mistakes him for Fidel.

This sets off a series of events that draws Carlos’ brother, Ramon, into the revolution.  Ramon goes to Cuba to track down and kill Garcia.  The conditions in Cuba convince him that someone has to overthrow Batista, and Fidel Castro is the most likely candidate.  Ramon smuggles guns to Castro, first in Mexico and later in Cuba.

The CIA are aware of Ramon’s illegal activities, and, after Castro’s takeover of Cuba, they blackmail him into running guns to anti-Castro forces in Cuba.  Under the same duress, Ramon takes part in the Bay of Pigs.At this point, Ramon is done.  He has a wife and child, and he is done working for Castro or the CIA or anybody else.  He simply wants to live a normal life.

The CIA will have one more job for him, however.  He is tagged to take operatives into Cuba to document the presence of Russian missiles there.  He is nearly killed and his boat is nearly sunk, but he brings the operatives safely back to Key West, along with proof that Khrushchev was establishing a missile base in Cuba.

 Paradise Lost is an important reminder of the recent history of Cuban-US relations.  Fidel Castro will not live much longer, and Cuban leadership will change again when he dies.  Even if Raul Castro takes over, he, too, is very elderly.  The United States will need to readdress the Cuba issue in the near future, and we need to be reminded of why there is a Cuba issue in the first place.

Patrick Lennon tells the complex story of the Cuban revolution dispassionately, reporter-fashion.  He reports the events of the revolution and the Cuban Missile Crisis with the flat, unemotional voice of fact, and pulls the facts together into a story that explains those events.  His passionless prose emphasizes the powerful passions that are still in play today, especially in the Cuban-American community.  

The future transfer of leadership in Cuba is potentially explosive.  Paradise Lost is an important novel because it reminds us of that fact.

The above review was contributed by: Penny Watkins, Free Lance Writer, Mother, Grandmother, and Cat Lady:  CLICK HERE  to read more of Penny's Reviews