BuzzFlash Reviews
Cuba on the Verge (Coffee Table Photo and Essay Book) - Not Available for Shipping Outside of the United States.
Edited by Terry McCoy, With an Introduction by William Kennedy and Epilogue Interview with Fidel Castro by the Late Arthur Miller
BUZZFLASH REVIEWS
Once again, we are offering "Cuba on the Verge" at a special BuzzFlash price (well below retail), including shipping and handling.
Not Available for Shipping Outside of the United States.
An online reviewer:
"A huge & quietly engrossing collection of essays & pictures by leading Cuban & American writers & photographers, offering unique insights into life in this fabled island nation.
Each essay & photo series delights--thinking men & observant women--about rituals & revolution; of struggling for love & beauty; the music of Cuba, focusing on Chucho Valdés; sugar mills & tobacco farms; the faces of change; life among the ruins; the emerging middle class; of being born too late for the revolution; of landscapes & mythology; how a Cuban comes home; letters from exile.
From the pens of Jon Lee Anderson; Russell Banks; Avilio Estévez; Abelarde Estorino; Cristina Garcia; Pablo Medina; Ana Menéndez; Mayra Montero; Nancy Morejón; Achy Obejas; Susan Orlean; Hugo Perez; Antonio José Ponte; Eduardo Luis Rodriguez & Reina Maria Rodriguez.
From the cameras of Niurka Barroso; Ernesto Bazan; Virginia Beahan; Carlos Garaicoa; Kastia Garcia Fayat; Abigail Gonzáles; Andrew Moore; Inge Morath; Abelardo Morell; René Peña; Manuel Piña; Silvia Plachy; Adalberto Roque; Fazal Sheikh & Carrie Mae Weems.
William Kennedy's Introduction is written in the style of a Miami newsman, who has written about Cuba for decades & now at last he's going to the "incipient phoenix, an exotic ambiguity...one of the major social experiments of the twentieth century..." & his excitement is palpable.
Playwright Arthur Miller's Epilogue is rich in impressions & American points of view of an encounter with The Leader, President Fidel Castro."
Another online reviewer:
"A masterpiece.
If you look at something from enough different angles, you begin to sense what it is truly like. That is the overarching strategy of this wondrous book. Multi-faceted Cuba is seen through the eyes of greatly gifted writers and photographers, each with his or her own unique relationship with and idiosyncratic take on the island. The strategy succeeds brilliantly. Paradoxes and trade-offs are subtly explored, for example, between the blessings of free education and health care versus constraints on the ability to pursue dreams. You get not only to understand but also to feel the sensuous physical beauty of the place and the strains of Cuba's love/hate relationship with the U.S.. After spending time with this book, I feel as if I had actually been there and am left with a longing to go."
Yet, another online reviewer:
"How has a tiny island had such a great impact on world culture? With it's evocative and poetic photo essays and personal almost intimate written essays about Cuba, Cuba On the Verge goes a long way to making you feel in your bones the potent Cuban 'ajiaco' the mixture of cultures and the vibrancy of the life and art it produces. I particularly enjoyed the interview with Chucho Valdes and Cuban popstar 'el Tosco' which helps us move beyond the limiting view of Buena Vista Social Club as the only Cuban music that most people in the world are aware of. Cuba is not caught in a fifties timewarp as most articles and books you read these days would have you believe, and Cuba On the Verge shows that."
From HavanaJournal.com:
"Terry McCoy sets out to do that in a new collection of images and essays titled Cuba on the Verge: An Island in Transition (Bulfinch Press, $50). McCoy, perhaps best known for her award-winning PBS documentaries, has brought together Cuban photographers and writers—those living on the island, as well as those in exile or born to those who are. She has added the work of several important American photographers and writers to the mix, most notably Sylvia Plachy and Arthur Miller.
Every contributor has an international reputation. Each has been paired—photographers and writers—not by bloodline or experience, but rather by fascination for certain themes. Image and word echo, contradict and deepen each other."
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