An astonishing account of Cuban exiles, CIA informants, and cocaine traffickers in Florida by the New York Times–bestselling author of South and West. In Miami, the National Book Award–winning author of The Year of Magical Thinking looks beyond postcard images of fluorescent waters, backlit islands, and pastel architecture to explore the murkier waters of a city on the edge. From Fidel Castro and the Bay of Pigs invasion to Lee Harvey Oswald and the Kennedy assassination to Oliver North and the Iran–Contra affair, Joan Didion uncovers political intrigues and shadowy underworld connections, and documents the US government's "seduction and betrayal" of the Cuban exile community in Dade County. She writes of hotels that offer "guerrilla discounts," gun shops that advertise Father's Day deals, and a real-estate market where "Unusual Security and Ready Access to the Ocean" are perks for wealthy homeowners looking to make a quick escape. With a booming drug trade, staggering racial and class inequities, and skyrocketing murder rates, Miami in the 1980's felt more like a Third World capital than a modern American city.
"By combining her novelist's ear and journalist's eye, Didion gives the reader a sense of the never-ending feeling of exile that is locked in the heart of every refugee…Masterful."
Library Journal
"The world Miss Didion describes in beautifully evocative prose is that familiar landscape we have learned to expect from her novels and essays, a world of menace and elliptical connections…The story she tells is a compassionate tale of Washington's seduction and betrayal of the Cuban exiles."
The New York Times Book Review
"In book after book, essay after essay, in fiction as well as nonfiction, she writes and thinks with exceptional rigor and originality, makes connections both abstract and specific with skill and grace, and brilliantly marshals masses of detail…Miami is Joan Didion's most ambitious nonfiction work yet...A brilliant book."
