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MWSA Review
Many Americans are familiar with the foreign affairs debacle that resulted from the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961. However, few will be aware of the Escambey Rebellion that was occurring at the same time. Both operations would be doomed to fail, but many participants have incredible stories to be told. Author Jorge Torrente–who escaped Castro’s Cuba during the Mariel boatlift–brings this story to life in his fast-paced historical fiction novel, The Uprising: the Escambray Rebellion.
The Escambray Rebellion, which lasted roughly five years, took place in the mountainous central-southern section of Cuba of the same name. The anti-Castro participants in this struggle were called “bandits” by the regime. Perhaps not surprisingly, a large number of their compatriots considered them heroes.
Combat scenes are graphic and intense; the wartime relationships are urgent and, in many cases, tragically short. Yet, through it all, Torrente brings his fictional characters to life and will keep you on the edge of your seat while reading about their struggle for a Cuba Libre.
Review by John Cathcart (April 2022)
Author's Synopsis
Trinidad, Cuba, 1960.
Old and sick, Elpidio Garcia lost his ranch to the new Agrarian Reform Law and died as a result. His youngest son and namesake decided enough was enough, armed himself, and fought back, but he made sure to always carry his grandfather's machete into battle. It was the beginning of a spontaneous uprising of farmers and small-town dwellers from a proud mountainous region steeped in libertarian traditions. They were all direct descendants of the men and women who had fought off Spain's colonialism in the late 1800's, and they also knew what had happened in Russia after Lenin's October Revolution and in Eastern Europe after WWII. Like-minded people from all over the island also joined the rebellion: whites, blacks, Catholics, Jewish, Santeros, a gay young woman named Rosa who couldn't care less that women were supposed to stay home, and the usual smattering of adventurers and misfits, the sum total representing the human fabric of the nation.
And fight they did, men and women, shoulder to shoulder, oftentimes to the death.
On the other side of the struggle, men like Lieutenant Antonio De la Huerta and his comrades were as passionate as their opponents and no less inclined to make the ultimate sacrifice.
Bur soon the CIA heard about it and started recruiting and training young Cuban exiles in Miami. Nestor Guttman and Luis Muriel, volunteer.
¨We are German Jews, my son, you were born in Cuba by accident!¨ Nestor´s father was desperate.
¨That´s not your fight!¨
¨Luis, no!¨ Luis´ wife can´t stop crying. ¨I´m twelve weeks pregnant!¨
This is a fact-based story, a combination of history, politics, military, action-adventure, social context of the time, and about all those people and their loved ones, sucked into the maelstrom.
Format(s) for review: Paper and Kindle
Review Genre: Fiction—Historical Fiction
Number of Pages: 441