NEXT YEAR IN CUBA: A Cubano’s Coming-of-Age...

NEXT YEAR IN CUBA: A Cubano’s Coming-of-Age in America by Gustavo Perez Firmat (Anchor: $12.95, 274 pp., illustrated). Born into a well-to-do Havana family, Firmat and many of his relatives fled to the United States when Castro seized power in 1960. In this fond memoir, he writes about the ways in which his relatives clung to the remnants of their native culture--and to the illusion that the imminent overthrow of the Castro regime would allow them to resume their former lives.

He offers a warm, unvarnished portrait of people caught between two cultures. Reflecting on his own life in Cuba and the United States, he asks the question so many immigrants have posed: “Where am I most me?”