Product Description

From the hot writer everybody’s talking about — the author of the sensational Havana Best Friends.

Elliot Steill, the product of a brief union between his Cuban mother and an American-born labourer, is an unhappy teacher in Havana when a man claiming to be a friend of Steill’s deceased father arrives in Cuba and offers him the chance to escape. The plan goes dangerously amiss, and Steill is soon on the hunt through Miami’s mean streets for the man who betrayed him. To find him, Steill first has to figure out why he was singled out, an exercise that has him mentally searching his past in Cuba for clues.

The fast-paced story, which reveals as much about real life in Cuba as it does about the émigré community in Miami, sees Steill transformed into a man of hair-trigger reactions as he’s forced into playing an increasingly violent game of cat and mouse. In just one of the novel’s many twists, the teacher becomes the fast learner he has to be to navigate this new world of greed, corruption, and crime — but also of compassion so unexpected it is wrenching.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #191427 in Books
• Published on: 2007-02-13
• Released on: 2007-02-13
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 344 pages

From Amazon.com
The recent explosion of Cuba-mania means that people who don't speak a word of Spanish are singing along with Compay Segundo, Ibrahim Ferrer, and the rest of the Buena Vista wunder-octogenarians; that Cuban cigars are more chic than clichéd; and that José Latour, popular Cuban thriller writer, is publishing his first English-language novel. Set partly in Havana and partly in Miami, Outcast will provide many Anglophone noir fans with their first glimpse of that genre as practiced in a country still largely tantalizing in its inaccessibility.

Elliot Steil, born of a Cuban mother to a long-vanished American father, may not love his life in Havana (as an English teacher earning the equivalent of $2 a month, who would?), but he loves the city itself for its tattered elegance and the warmth of its people. His response to the communist political philosophy that underpins and overlies Cuba is one of generally resigned apathy. The arrival of Dan Gastler, who claims to be an old friend of Elliot's father, catapults Elliot from apathy to action when Gastler offers the teacher a chance to escape to the U.S. on his sailboat.

But Gastler shoves Elliot overboard mid-journey, leaving him to die in the Florida Straits. The serendipitous arrival of a family of Cuban rafters prevents him from drowning, but does little to assuage Elliot's baffled fury. The answers come slowly, as the teacher tackles a dual mission: to survive financially and psychologically as a Cuban refugee in Miami, and to uncover the identity and motive of his attacker. The former pulls him gradually into the city's grungy criminal underbelly, and the latter entangles him in a treacherous web of bitter family history and political machinations--with deadly consequences.

Though Latour is no Vladimir Nabokov (his grasp of English, while certainly commendable, doesn't prevent a host of bizarre phrasings from jarring the reader's eye and ear), Outcast is at heart a workmanlike thriller. Its innate straightforwardness, however, is often at odds with Latour's efforts to fancy things up with arbitrary chronological leaps and shifts in narrative perspective, which undermine the novel's pacing and plot. But for readers looking for a glimpse into Cuban American life through a rarely used prism, Outcast will deliver the goods. --Kelly Flynn

-- Washington Post
"A remarkable novel."

Review
“It’s hard to think of another book that’s so knowledgeable about the contrasts between the United States and Cuba and so fair-minded about the dilemmas of people caught in the middle. Outcast is warm, human, often funny and consistently interesting — a fast, rich read.”
— Los Angeles Times

Customer Reviews

great
Outcast is a marvellous atempt to capture Cuban culture and history whilst simultaneously showing you the plight that many illegal immigrants have to go through when trying to cross the 90 miles of sea to get to the states, miami. I take my hat if to latour, as he builds suspense so to does he build up red hearings to fool you and presents some quite unexpected twists. Its genre is crime and his imagery is nothing short of amazing i have never felt so emersed in a book where i could actually see everything he was describing. Pick it up you will not regret it I know i havent.

Almost Perfect
This novel grabbed me from the get-go, and didn't let go until about 3/5 of the way through.
Jose Latour is a brilliant Cuban crime writer, who has style and insight. This, his first written in English, should be read by all mystery/crime novel lovers. Starts out in Havana, a Cuban English teacher (of part North American desent), who is rather indifferent towrds the revolution, is contacted by an American who says he has been paid 9k to bring this teacher to Miami. The plan is set, but half way there, our friend is pushed off the boat, and left for the sharks. There begins the drama and mystery.
Don't worry, I did not spoil anything, there is so much that happens in this novel. It did become a tad bit inconcevable towards the end, for that I knocked off one star. But it is an entertaining read, and was quite enlightening in regards to Cuba.

Great mystery/thriller
This is a great mystery thriller by a well known Cuban writer. Usually foreign writers can't translate thier styles, to my liking, into American literature. Jose Latour is an exception and I just pray he keeps writing more for his American fans.