Barb, my father was stationed in Florida during WWII and used to get three-day passes to Havana, back when Havana was FUN. He would occasionally tell carefully edited stories about some of the fun he had.

Toddson, that book I mentioned, Havana Nocturne, talks about the fun times in the 1940s and 1950s, but from the perspective of how the mob ran the country, and how Castro ended up winning in 1958.

There's another book, Kathy, called Tropicana Nights that recounts that particular heyday in Havana's history and touches on the mob involvement, since so much of it was through the nightclubs.

The thing I'm struggling most with in the manuscript I'm working on is weaving in just enough of that sort of detail-- the brutality of Castro's takeover, and taking literary license where necessary without either completely disregarding the history or turning the narrative into a "Look! Here's every! single! detail! I learned about the Revolution."

Too many authors want to show you the scope of their research and I want to avoid becoming That Author. (Diana Gabaldon did it in Dragonfly in Amber and it made me NUTS.)

If you want some further details on life in Cuba during the 1950s/early '60s for the average person, I might be able to get my BIL's sister to contact you, Barb. She was in her mid-20s when the family left Cuba in 1962.

Thanks, Kathy-- luckily, I've got my enormous family to draw from, many of whom came over at various times from the mid-fifties to the early sixties, but extra perspective is always good.

E-mail me at my profile addy if you'd like, and I'll see if she's available online from BIL.

Too many authors want to show you the scope of their research

::coughNealStephensoncough::

I just posted a snippet over in GWW, to see if the approach I'm taking works. There was a reason I really didn't want to take on something with historical scope, but tell that to the story that wants out.

David Foster Wallace reading a very funny piece about a baton twirling competition at the Harper's 150th anniversary celebration.

Bah.

Children's: Young Adult Candace Bushnell's THE CARRIE DIARIES, about Sex and the City character Carrie Bradshaw's high-school years, to Alessandra Balzer at Balzer & Bray, in a two-book deal, for publication in fall 2010, by Heather Schroder at ICM (world).

And my personal favorite...

Nicholas Sparks's new novel, for publication in fall 2009, is being written simultaneously with the author's own adaptation of that story as a starring vehicle for Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus (Offspring Entertainment is producing, for Walt Disney Pictures). Sparks had pitched "a premise for a novel that intrigued Cyrus, her family and the producers," Variety says, though no details are being shared. Sparks says, "This is similar to the way it's gone with movies based on my novels; it's just out of order. Certain opportunities garner your interest, and this was one of those."

Publishing isn't dead, as has been widely reported. It's just been consumed in a cloud of utter vapidness.

Not that I purport to be writing the Great American Novel or anything even approaching it, but really? Miley Cyrus? That's lame, even for Sparks.