Surviving Well Is The Best Revenge - Cuba: 1958 (Paperback)

Christian James Joyce had only one mission in life; to be free of himself and get clean. Christian is a young musician, scarred by drugs, awash in self doubt, fleeing from the temptations of the jazz scene in the '50s. Alone, on the road, leaving Montreal and his family behind, he escaped first to Chicago, then south to the Islands. Befriended by an ex-marine who was also on the run, but not from himself, Maartyn St. Jacques, son of a Delta whore, had the swagger and cockiness that was guaranteed to get them into trouble. But not before they landed on Andros Island, where Christian met Renee, a sophisticated Bohemian from Paris, who taught Christian about free love in the sand with a dose of Jean Paul Sartre and Allen Ginsberg. The mob grew and the parties increased until Christian was again swimming against the tide of self abuse. Christian escaped again to Cuba where he settled in a shabby but quiet fishing village on the west coast, far from the rumblings of the Cuban Revolution. Or so he thought. It was a dangerous time to be in Cuba. A young revolutionary named Fidel Castro, had inflamed the people to rise up against the tyranny of Fulgencio Batista and his cronies. A young Canadian in a black barrette could be mistaken for a mercenary infiltrating Cuba to join the revolution. For a brief time Christian was content to hide out in his rented villa above the pristine beach, play music, fish for his food and learn to live clean with the help of his oddly attentive houseboy, Miguel. There was something odd about everyone he met in the village that seemed asleep in the Cuban sun. Then the mob began to find him. Maartyn arrived without warning and then Renee. Christian thought that his erstwhile friends and poverty were the biggest problems he would have to deal with that Christmas Season in 1958 while the Revolution remained distant thunder in the Sierra Maestre far to the east. But he hadn't yet been seduced by Juanita or threatened by Don Escobar.