Miami - Hardcover

Didion, Joan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0297793187 ISBN 13: 9780297793182

Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988

Synopsis

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 skyrocketing murder rate is fueled by the cocaine trade, racial discontent, and an undeclared war on the island 90 miles to the south.As Didion follows Miami's drift into a Third World capital, she also locates its position in the secret history of the Cold War, from the Bay of Pigs to the Reagan doctrine and from the Kennedy assassination to the Watergate break-in. "Miami" is not just a portrait of a city, but a masterly study of immigration and exile, passion, hypocrisy, and political violence.

About this title

Review:

"Her prose is . . . finely tuned . . . . İMiami¨ turns much sunny light into a murky underwater darkness full of sharks and evil shadows." --"The New York Times"
"Didion's Miami is a kaleidoscope of impressions, and a litany of violence, intrigue, vengeance, political manipulation, and broken dreams." --"Boston Globe"

" Her prose is . . . finely tuned . . . . [Miami] turns much sunny light into a murky underwater darkness full of sharks and evil shadows." -- "The New York Times"
" Didion's Miami is a kaleidoscope of impressions, and a litany of violence, intrigue, vengeance, political manipulation, and broken dreams." -- "Boston Globe"

"Her prose is . . . finely tuned . . . . [Miami] turns much sunny light into a murky underwater darkness full of sharks and evil shadows." "The New York Times"
"Didion's Miami is a kaleidoscope of impressions, and a litany of violence, intrigue, vengeance, political manipulation, and broken dreams." "Boston Globe""

-Her prose is . . . finely tuned . . . . [Miami] turns much sunny light into a murky underwater darkness full of sharks and evil shadows.- --The New York Times
-Didion's Miami is a kaleidoscope of impressions, and a litany of violence, intrigue, vengeance, political manipulation, and broken dreams.- --Boston Globe

"Her prose is . . . finely tuned . . . . [Miami] turns much sunny light into a murky underwater darkness full of sharks and evil shadows." --The New York Times

"Didion's Miami is a kaleidoscope of impressions, and a litany of violence, intrigue, vengeance, political manipulation, and broken dreams." --Boston Globe

From the Back Cover:

Miami is the American future – more Latin than North. In this volatile city, English is no longer the prevailing language or culture. Many of the inhabitants are loyal to another nation, regard themselves not as immigrants but as exiles, and nurse an abiding sense of having been betrayed by their host. As Miami and the nation's capital grow ever more distant, Didion documents an estrangement that is indicative of the corrosion now afflicting the famous melting pot...

"Joan Didion's Miami is at once an aggressively real city and a legendary domain to which Swift might well have posted Gulliver, or Voltaire Candide. In this book Didion the novelist and Didion the moralist work hand in hand to create a work that combines intense imaginative vision with extraordinary argumentative force. In her exact, rational and appalled portrayal, Miami is the price that America is paying for the corrupted language in which it conducts its political business."
JONATHAN RABAN, 'Observer'

"By the time one has finished this unflinching and acute book, ostensibly journalism but containing all the intrigue of a thriller, one is oneself on edge."
FRANCES SPALDING, 'TES'

"Her book may be seen by many as recording the defeat of the American system."
CAL McCRYSTAL, 'Sunday Times'

"I doubt I'll read prose any more beautiful than this in the next year... the writing and its message scorch like dry ice."
JOHN GILL, 'Time Out'

"Miami the place is, to Didion's mind, the most interesting city in the US. 'Miami' the book is, to my mind, nothing short of brilliant."
LOUISE BERNIKOW, 'Cosmopolitan'

"No one depicts place or passion or dislocation with more accuracy; no one can move us more deeply with the staccato repetition of the crazy facts of personal-political life than Joan Didion."
NEW STATESMAN

About this edition

• Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0297793187
• ISBN 13: 9780297793182
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240