Cuba News and Information

BY ENRIQUE FERNANDEZ | Miami Herald

T. J. English’s engaging book about the era covers the same ground as such novels as Mayra Montero’s masterful Dancing to Almendra and Ace Atkins’ intriguing White Shadow, as well as films by Francis Ford Coppola, Sidney Pollack and Andy García. A scene that bad was just too good to pass up. But English’s brand of narrative is history, and he aims to set the record straight, even pointing out artistic liberties taken in Godfather II.

Meyer Lansky, for example, was not the venerable old man of the underworld portrayed in the movie but frisky enough to carry a serious and atypical romance with a Cuban woman (an important aspect of Montero’s novel). Still, Coppola was on point: gangsters from the United States set up business in Havana in cahoots with Cuban strongman Fulgencio Batista.

These mobsters were protected from U.S. law enforcement in Havana, but, even so, a cautious Lansky never appeared on the casinos’ books as anything other than a minor administrator. And it was in Havana that U.S. organized crime got organized, English explains, becoming a de facto government in what was meant to be the first stage of a serious international empire.

But in its nationalistic zeal, the Cuban revolution wrecked the mob’s plans, as casinos, associated with government corruption, were first ransacked and finally closed down. The gangsters never recovered.

What English calls ‘’the Havana mob’’ was composed, at different stages, of such gangsters as Santo Trafficante, the dapper Tampa kingpin whose experience with Spanish and Cuban culture in his native city gave him an insight his colleagues lacked. The mob also involved key figures in Batista’s government, including the putative president himself.

A parade of characters moves through Havana Nocturne: George Raft, who came down as a casino ‘’greeter,’’ acting out in real life the mobster roles he made famous on film; Frank Sinatra, already a mob favorite; Marlon Brando, a party animal loose in the greatest party city; John F. Kennedy, indulging his taste for orgiastic sex courtesy of his unsavory friends; Nat King Cole, Eartha Kitt and other top African-American entertainers. Also striking is the story of the lesser-known but fondly remembered showgirl who, in a strike of promotional genius, publicized her upcoming performance by parading through Havana in a transparent raincoat and little else.

English makes clever use of period pop-culture highlights, such as La Engañadora (The Deceiver), a hit song about a curvaceous woman who drove the street guys wild until people learned her form was nothing but cleverly placed padding. ‘’I am not La Engañadora,’’ the raincoat beauty told the authorities when they stopped her, claiming truth in advertising trumped indecent exposure.

Havana Nocturne is thoroughly researched. English’s list of sources is impressive, and each chapter is as heavily footnoted as a doctoral thesis. Fortunately, the book doesn’t read like one. English, the author of Paddy Whacked and The Westies and a college professor of organized crime (!), keeps the motor running on his narrative, in one case acknowledging an early nickname for the mixed-blood Batista, el mulato lindo (the pretty mulatto), and then using it instead of his name at different points to flavor the story.

Describing Raft’s role in the Havana mob, English uses the phrase ‘’gangster chic.’’ Although there is plenty of ugly violence in the book, those words characterize the era’s continuing appeal. Bad things ended with the downfall of the mob. But tropical architecture, the glamor of the Caribbean’s most sophisticated city and bespoke tailoring would never be the same.

Enrique Fernandez is a Miami Herald staff writer. 

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Rob , I am reading the book ( about half way through it, and it is GREAT) but I am unaware about TJ English being on that show

It was moi, your troublemaker.