ISBN: 0-916870-41-3
192 pp.
Size: 5.5 x 8.5
Hardcover
Price: $15.00
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Totally Free Man, A
John Krich
An aging, insomniac Fidel Castro spends a night talking into a tape recorder, fulfilling a whimsical promise to dictate his "autobiography." At first reluctant to expose the personal and emotional concerns which he has long considered irrelevant to the Cuban Revolution, Castro's penchant for oratory soon gets the best of him. He goes on to reveal little-known details of his development: from the mischievous country boy to the Havana dandy, from the honeymooner in Miami to the guerilla leader, from the Latin lover to the Marxist celibate, from his first toys to his last will and testament. Dwelling largely on the story of his marriage and divorce, the narrator probes his memories, seeking "the old man inside the new man, the new man inside the old man."
Like a speech by its subject, A Totally Free Man is relentless, eloquent and inspirational. At times poetic, at times didactic, at times surreal in its mixture of lofty sentiments and mundane pleasures like softball and cafй con leche, this novel breaks new ground in the terrain where history meets the internal life. Simultaneously a product of research and an act of the imagination, it is a book in which nothing is wholly true an nothing wholly false-yet every page sheds new light on Cuba and its "neighbor to the North," on the process of revolt wherever it takes place. Remarkably vivid in its fictional portrayal of this world leader, the book is nonetheless about each individual's attempt to become, in Castro's own words, "a man that is totally free, that owns his own life."
Review: "A Totally Free Man is a work of marvelous historical imagination and considerable wit."
-Francine du Plessix Gray
"John Krich is a natural, an exciting new writer with a great ear and a fine eye..."
-Peter Matthiessen
"John Krich breathes life into words. His voice is uniquely his own. And what comes out is crazy, funny, mournful, at time, revelatory, and for ever Krichy..."
-Studs Terkel
Bio: A Totally Free Man marks the novelistic debut of John Krich, a young writer who has created a local sensation with Bump City, a depiction of his home town Oakland, California. His stories have received national attention in Commentary and other magazines.
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