Waiting for Snow in Havana discussion

Waiting for Snow In Havana is a humorous, fascinating narrative by a man recounting his life in Cuba just prior to the revolution and during the first year of the resulting new order. As a friend of that revolution and its brave people I was impressed with Mr. Eire's tales from his youthful memories. His descriptions of the decadence and outrageous class disparity during the dictator Batista' regime, might have influenced him and his class to understand the inevitability and justice of a rebellion and its restitution. This was not the case.

Nonetheless, I loved the book, with all its earthy craziness and biases, because somehow, Carlos transcended his prejudices formed in his ten years of life in Havana to be semi objective, if unsympathetic to the revolution and its leaders (He refers to its devoted leader as a lizard). I do believe he was more traumatized by his spooky mother, who seemed to be the sole culprit in sending Carlos and his birth brother into exile in the USA, while they were still children. His eccentric, semi-likeable, rather rich and privileged father and a perverted (adopted) brother also impacted significantly, on the youthful Erie's psyche. Both of these people stayed to share in the new order, while mama left later, when Cuba’s bureaucrats relaxed their restrictions on travel.
Alas, his version of the revolution, and the oppressed peoples who followed the leadership who created it, appears to be instilled more by tales of Floridian exiles, and by American politician/media propaganda, perpetuated by these refugees and defenders of opulent living and sins in pre- revolutionary Cuba. His revulsion, fear and cruelty toward lizards, rather common in Cuba, beautifully encapsulates this child's/man's emotions, fears and denial.
I wish that this intelligent and capable author was more understanding, when it comes to understanding the justification for Cuba's revolt, despite its imperfections with its peace time implementation of a new system of democracy, as worthy and arguably as flawed as the much heralded American "great democracy".
I can identify with Carlos as a youth, both of us having parents who spoiled us shamefully. Both enjoyed a carefree idyllic youth, in wonderful environments, notwithstanding the undemocratic privileged classes in closely controlled and guarded societies. The difference in this comparison was that his family was very rich -mine was poor-but both of us had unique and joyful child hoods. I never realized I was poor until I was a juvenile; he never realized that he was in a privileged family until he was teenager in exile at his mother’s insistence.