A raging fire in the sugarcane fields of eastern Cuba opens Telex from Cuba by Rachel Kushner (Scribner $25.00). The time is 1958, shortly before the Americans were driven out by Castro’s revolution. Tropical Cuba in the 50′s seems to be an idyllic setting for young Everly Lederer and K.C. Stites who are coming of age in the gated American enclave in the company town of Preston. Far away in Havana a cabaret dancer’s work life is intertwined with Presidents Prio and Batista and a French agitator called La Maziere. She is sympathetic to Castro and he is running guns to the rebels in the hills and forming an attachment to the dancer. Growing up in eastern Washington, I was unclear about Cuba’s actual distance from US mainland and why it was so important to us. Although this story takes place before the Bay of Pigs, it helps to explain what led up to that fiasco. Told in deceptively low key prose this gripping tale reveals the secrets and prejudices of the Americans contrasted with the incredible poverty and brutal working conditions of the cane cutters and the Cuban people in general. I was fascinated with this story of Cuba. ~ Gretchen Echols