Description: It is where Fidel Castro raised money to overthrow Batista and where two generations of Castro's enemies have raised armies to overthrow him, so far without success. It is where the bitter opera of Cuban exile intersects with the cynicism of U.S. foreign policy. It is a city whose sky rocketing murder rate is fueled by the cocaine trade, racial discontent, and an undeclared war on the island ninety miles to the south. The city is Miami, and no one has observed its pastel surfaces and murky intrigues more astutely than Joan Didion. Miami is not just a portrait of a city, but a masterly study of immigration and exile, passion and hypocrisy -- and of political violence turned as personal as a family feud.

Please Wait