Dirty Havana Trilogy

Pedro Juan is a reporter in Havana, but as existence in Cuba and his own life begin to collapse around him, he gives up the farce of a daily job, and begins to 'train himself to take nothing seriously.'

His training involves lots of sex, drugs, rum, jazz, beat literature and street philosophy in a series of graphic vignettes, all teaming with raw energy and ruggedness and yet strangely empty. Pedro Juan slips from bed to bed, desperation to elation and vice to more vice, learning nothing, trying not to care. He is just another cog in Havana's wheel.

We learn about the practicalities of communism in a material world, about making sure the glass is always full and apathy.

The book is fun and funny and drips with the realities of modern day communism, of the harsher side of Havana life and the rum-soaked semi-stoned world of a man with nothing to feel ambitious about. We learn more about Havana in these concise pages than we do in most travel guides.

Make mine a mojito.