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Before Fidel Castro seized power, Cuba was an ebullient and chaotic society in a permanent state of turmoil, combining a raucous tropical nature with the evils of arbitrary and corrupt government. Yet this fascinating period in Cuban history has been largely forgotten or misrepresented, even though it set the stage for Castro's dramatic takeover in 1959. To reclaim the Cuba that he knew—and add color and detail to the historical record—distinguished political scientist Francisco José Moreno here offers his recollections of the Cuba in which he came of age personally and politically.

Moreno takes us into the little-known world of privileged, upper-middle-class, white Cubans of the 1930s through the 1950s. His vivid depictions of life in the family and on the streets capture the distinctive rhythms of Cuban society and the dynamics between parents and children, men and women, and people of different races and classes. The heart of the book describes Moreno's political awakening, which culminated during his student years at the University of Havana. Moreno gives a detailed, insider's account of the anti-Batista movement, including the Ortodoxos and the Triple A. He recaptures the idealism and naiveté of the movement, as well as its ultimate ineffectiveness as it fell before the juggernaut of the Castro Revolution. His own disillusionment and wrenching decision to leave Cuba rather than accept a commission in Castro's army poignantly closes the book.

In this poetic, introspective memoir, Kenny Fries illustrates his intersecting identities as gay, Jewish, and disabled. While learning about the history of his body through medical records and his physical scars, Fries discovers just how deeply the memories and psychic scars run. As he reflects on his relationships with his family, his compassionate doctor, the brother who resented his disability, and the men who taught him to love, he confronts the challenges of his life. Body, Remember is a story about connection, a redemptive and passionate testimony to one man’s search for the sources of identity and difference.

An incantation of strength and solace for persisting in twenty-first-century America

“History doesn’t repeat, it rhymes.” In his sweeping third collection, Charleston brings a poet’s ear for echo and rhythm to bear on American history and life after 2016. For Charleston, these rhymes cut two ways: the long tradition of American racism and fascism, and the steady pulse of Black persistence. The collection’s titular invocation frames each poem, at times an oratory to rally a crowd, in other moments a private prayer whispered as the speaker gathers himself to face another day. Charleston insists that should we cede memory of our national biography—whether to repression or indifference—we will witness the country’s dissolution into something unrecognizable to many, yet all too familiar to its most marginalized people. But with each reiteration and riff, he also invokes a tenuous hope—that if we summon an American history of Black resistance, we might still make a more perfect union.