Journalist Patrick Symmes talks about living on $15 dollars a month in Cuba. His article in the October Harper’s is “Thirty Days as a Cuban: Pinching pesos and dropping pounds in Havana.” And we air a 2008 interview with T.J. English about HAVANA NOCTURNE. It’s about how the Mob took over Havana and lost it to the Revolution.
Francesca talks with journalist T. J. English about the Mafia’s Cuba experiment, the parallels between the Mob and legal capitalism, and the role Mob activities played in spurring the Cuban Revolution into being. His bestselling book is HAVANA NOCTURNE: How the Mob owned Cuba…and Then Lost It to the Revolution.
Also, Marisa Silver tells us about her haunting novel, THE GOD OF WAR. Set in the arid landscape by the Salton Sea of California, GOD OF WAR is a powerful coming-of-age novel about a boy who confronts the need to balance his responsibility to his family with his emerging sense of self.
[amazon-product align=”right”]1416563172[/amazon-product]“Marisa Silver’s The God of War is a novel of great metaphorical depth and beauty. It stays with you like a lesson well and truly learned.” — Richard Russo, author of Empire Falls