Pichn: Revolution and Racism in Castro's Cuba: A Memoir

Moore's Jamaican parents immigrated to Cuba “in search of a better life,” but the author's own search took him from Cuba, “where black skin and African features were despised,” to the United States, where “Negroes were rich and famous and powerful,” and on to peripatetic global travels. He was present at historic moments around the world but oddly, takes a lackadaisical approach (in February 1960, four black students “initiated what was thereafter called a sit-in... in March, the massacre of unarmed black protestors... in South Africa brought the term apartheid into my vocabulary”). Moore's prose is uncommonly bland and wooden, though startling images surface occasionally; details of his teenaged sexual obsession with white women (“the ultimate conquest for me”) and details of his bureaucratic encounters are overdrawn. Moore's passion to reveal that “Castro's limitations on the questions of race were glaring from the start” is buried under too much self-absorption. According to Moore, Alex Haley told him, “It's one hell of a story.... You must write a book.” Perhaps in Haley's hands, Moore's story might have gained the clarity of focus and freshness of voice it lacks. (Nov.)