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Miami — Joan Didion

Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2019

Against the backdrop of Miami’s declension caused by economic and political changes with the concomitant refugee immigration from Cuba after Castro’s rise to power, Didion writes a stunning and fascinating expose of self serving deceit on the part of the United States, the use of world issues, Central America, South American as pawns in a game of politics. Issues brought forth or put on a back burner to accommodate political advantage. I greatly respect, enjoy and appreciate Didion’s genius and highly recommend all her books.

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Robert B. LammTop Contributor: Historical Fiction Books

I Used to Love Her, But It's All Over Now

Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2013

I used to grab anything that Joan Didion wrote for the sheer pleasure of reading her stiletto-like prose, her sarcasm, and the intelligence of her observations. However, I guess I'm over her; perhaps I've dumbed down, or perhaps this book is just too dated (it was written in 1987, and while the more things change the more they may stay the same, a great deal HAS changed). At a minimum, I have to agree with Mr. Blanton's review in many respects; Ms. Didion is writing more for herself than for any reader, though I would add that what I used to think of as sarcasm now seems extremely holier-than-thou and so impressed with itself as to be off-putting to the max.

I also have to assume that the book is a compilation of articles that were intended to be read over time - perhaps over a long time. If that's correct, then putting them into book form does a disservice, because after a while you feel like you're reading the same thing over and over again. The sense that you're being beaten over the head with repetitious and smug observations is overwhelming and makes for a most unsatisfying read.

If you want to read the best of Joan Didion, go back to "The White Album" or "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" - though I'm not going to re-read them for fear that it really IS all over now.

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From the United States

Harriet Boe

Miami — Joan Didion

Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2019

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R. Weiss

thoughtful book, amusing typos

Reviewed in the United States on June 8, 2022

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Better be up on your compound and complex sentences. She used these constantly but delivered a lot of information and perspective on the Cuban missile crisis and even more on the contras and Sandinistas. Drily entertaining. Slouching Toward Bethlehem next.

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Joseph Sciuto

STIMULATING!!!!!!

Reviewed in the United States on August 16, 2021

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Joan Didion's, "Miami," is an intriguing story that chronicles the time between the 'Bay of Pigs,' and straight into the Reagan administration. In many way it is a sociological study of the different Cuban exiles groups in Miami and the different approaches they took in the hope of overthrowing Castro. Of special interest, was how some exile groups did not really believe that the United States was their ally in this fight. They believed that the Kennedy administration had made a deal with the Russians that literally tied the American hands.

The latter part of this book deals with the unrest in Central America during the Reagan administration, and the different stories circulating out of Washington and Miami about the approaches being used to liberate the people of Nicaragua and El Salvador.

I must admit I found the last twenty pages of this book very difficult to follow. It was like reading James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, but the rest of the book was truly stimulating and made incisive statements about Miami during this time that I had no idea about.

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El Sooko

Superb.

Reviewed in the United States on September 10, 2018

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Joan Didion is a truly amazing essayist. This is not her most electric work, but it is no less amazing.

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retired guy

Real noir by a master

Reviewed in the United States on December 4, 2010

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I am one of those who absolutely love Didion's style. Her long meandering sentences, laden with subordinate clauses that wind down a long trail of adjectives and phrasings, remind me of Hunter Thompson on Sherry instead of meth, until reaching a conclusion that is at once obvious and profound. Ah, where was I?

Oh yes, I was captured by Didion's "The Year of Magical Thinking" after losing a loved one, and found her book to be the only one that came close to capturing the sorrow and ennui of that period of my life. I love her ideosyncratic style, and it served "Miami" well. She serves up the threats unveiled and the danger open and unguarded as she talks political assassination and murder in the same breath as Cuban literature and culture. This book captures the mundane face of the patriot in exile who will stop at nothing to regain his homeland, even when that homeland no longer effectively exists. Miami has truly become America's Casablanca, and she looks it in the eye without flinching. A political and social study that is more timely than many current tomes.

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Dana Garrett

A Story Perhaps Only a Novelist Can Tell Well

Reviewed in the United States on September 27, 2004

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The story of the Cuban exiles in Miami deserves to be told with drama and passion because that is what it has been. In this page-turner, Joan Didion captures the rejection and racism that the Cuban exiles first encountered in Miami when they emigrated from Cuba after Castro assumed power. She shows how some of the Cubans became successful businesspersons, political powerbrokers, shapers of local culture, renowned humanitarians and philanthropists, expert propagandists, able diplomats, drug runners, muggers, and internationally renowned terrorists.

We see the close relationship the Cuban exiles formed with the USA government, especially its clandestine agencies. We learn that in the 1960s Miami essentially became a CIA recruiting and operational-staging center. Didion tells us that the CIA had as much as 120,000 "regular agents" (full and part-time) stationed in south Florida. It had a flotilla of small boats (often used for terrorist raids on Cuba), making it the third largest navy in the western hemisphere at the time. It owned airline companies in the Miami area and holding companies that lent itself loans for covert operations. "There were [also] hundreds of pieces of Miami real estate, residential bungalows maintained as safe houses, waterfront properties maintained as safe harbors" as well as "fifty five other front businesses" and "CIA boat shops," "guns shops," real-estate, travel and detective agencies (pp. 90-91).

Yet the relationship between the Cuban Americans and the USA has been a troubled one. Although the Cuban Americans find themselves dependent on the USA for maintaining their struggle against Castro, they also don't trust the government, blaming it for their loss at the Bay of Pigs and for adopting policies soft on Castro. Likewise, the USA finds some Cuban Americans helpful in its secret foreign adventures (Chile, Nicaragua, Angola, etc.) as well as a nuisance when these terrorist elements assassinate foreign diplomats, blow up airplanes and banks, and murder USA citizens.

Particularly poignant is Didion's description of the Cuban Americans' personal and often internecine struggle over understanding themselves as immigrants or exiles. These struggles have resulted in broken friendships, shunning, public ridicule, financial loss, bodily harm and death.

The book only covers Miami until 1987. I wish Didion would update the book, although it might be dangerous for her to do so.

This is a great read and well worth the purchase.

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Robert B. LammTop Contributor: Historical Fiction Books

I Used to Love Her, But It's All Over Now

Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2013

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17 people found this helpful

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Blankeetah

The truth about Miami in the 80's

Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2014

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This is an essential book about Miami in the 70's and the 80's. It explores all the implication that the influx of Cuban nationals had on the tip of Florida, the drug trade, the economic boom and later the rise in crime. This books doesn't sugar coat anything, and after reading it, you actually feel that you know too much and your life is in danger. It portrays a compendium of news, since Didion was a journalist, and you are basically getting unbiased information. Great book and a must read to those interested in Miami, Florida, or interested in Cuban politics.

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