The Domino Diaries: My Decade Boxing with Olympic Champions and Chasing Hemingway's Ghost in the Last Days of Castro's Cuba

by Brin-Jonathan Butler

Overview

A powerful and lively work of immersive journalism, Brin-Jonathan Butler's The Domino Diaries tells the story of his time chasing the American dream through Cuba.

Whether he's hustling his way into Mike Tyson's mansion for an interview, betting his life savings on a boxing match, becoming romantically entangled with one of Fidel Castro's granddaughters, or simply manufacturing press credentials to go where he wants-Brin-Jonathan Butler has always been the "act first, ask permission later" kind of journalist.

This book is the culmination of Butler's decade spent in the trenches of Havana, trying to understand a culture perplexing to Westerners: one whose elite athletes regularly forgo multimillion-dollar opportunities to stay in Cuba and box for their country, while living in penury. Butler's fascination with this distinctly Cuban idealism sets him off on a remarkable journey, training with, befriending, and interviewing the champion boxers that Cuba seems to produce more than any other country.

In the process, though, Butler gets to know the landscape of the exhilaratingly warm Cuban culture-and starts to question where he feels most at home. In the tradition of Michael Lewis and John Jeremiah Sullivan, Butler is a keen and humane storyteller, and the perfect guide for this riotous tour through the streets of Havana.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250095794
Publisher:	Picador
Publication date:	06/07/2016
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

BRIN-JONATHAN BUTLER is a writer and filmmaker. His work has appeared in ESPN Magazine, Vice, Deadspin, The Wall Street Journal, Salon, and The New York Times. Butler’s documentary, Split Decision, is Butler’s examination of Cuban-American relations and the economic and cultural paradoxes that have shaped them since Castro’s revolution, through the lens of elite Cuban boxers forced to choose between remaining in Cuba or defecting to America.

Editorial Reviews

A writer with less integrity might have concluded…that Fidel Castro’s experiment had failed….But [Butler's] time in Cuba provided this talented and ambitious writer with all he needed to introduce readers to the complex and contradictory island he loves.”—The Boston Globe

“Far more than a sports memoir, this terrific book explores the world of Cuba's famed boxers, who have chosen to live in dire poverty in their home country even as multi million-dollar paydays await them elsewhere....[Butler] provides a rich (if quirky) portrait of contemporary Havana, a decaying city that remains, even in tatters, one of the most soulful and bewitching places on the planet.” —Chicago Tribune

“Butler deftly bobs and weaves his way through Havana past and present in his gonzo-poetic blend of sports journalism, political philosophizing, and gorgeous first-person travelogue...this is a book that pulls no punches.” —Passport Magazine

“Gripping.” —Sports Illustrated

“In this striking memoir, writer and filmmaker Butler examines his bittersweet love affair with Cuba through the lens of boxing...More artist than journalist, Butler approaches his material slantwise, and much of his prose is fluid and searching....He has produced a book worthy of Cuba's beauty and sorrow.” —Publishers Weekly

“[Butler's] gritty portrayal of the island is an authentic glimpse into the lives of those who live it every day. In many ways, the book acts as a hands-on travel guide to Cuba, infecting readers with an urge to visit. His passion for the island is contagious. With the United States embargo against Cuba likely soon to be lifted, the island is on the verge of what could turn out to be radical change. The Domino Diaries is one last look inside Fidel Castro's Cuba.” —The Globe and Mail

“People lament that this is no Golden Age of boxing writing. Hogwash, I say....I recommend writer Brin-Jonathan Butler. [He is] principled, intelligent, and can collect big picture thoughts and philosophy and render it accessible.” —The Sweet Science

“This memoir is particularly timely....You can embrace this book with an eye toward its cultural commentary or you can focus on the sport of boxing. Either way, there's plenty to learn.” —Beth Fish Reads

“Butler is a sensitive observer, imparting in a most visceral way the smells, sounds, visuals, and, most gloriously, the unblushing sexuality of a Cuba on the precipice of another, larger, perhaps most fatal American invasion: tourism.” —Booklist

“Colorful writing and insightful analysis....A nuanced portrait of the grays where reality lies between the black and white.” —Kirkus Reviews

“In The Domino Diaries, Brin-Jonathan Butler writes like a heavyweight champion: Tyson's power, Ali's elegance, and Joe Louis's humanity, all of them are on display here. Writing, like boxing, is a solitary endeavor, one that gets displayed nakedly, for better or worse, to the world. This engrossing work not only looks at the sweeping world, it delves into the darkness of being alone with your aloneness. A total knockout.” —Charles Bock, New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Children

“There's nothing in the world like America's grasping, oversexed, blundering, blustery and oft-deadly relationship with Cuba. Charting this fever dream, this illness of love and fear, requires a poet's ear, an outsider's eye, a boxer's clinical cruelty, and an unhealthy attraction to breakage. I give you Brin-Jonathan Butler. Anyone can—and, especially now, will—tell you what to think about Cuba. But no one can show you better how the place makes you feel.” —S.L. Price, Sports Illustrated Senior Writer and author of Pitching Around Fidel: A Journey into the Heart of Cuban Sports

“You don't have to be a boxing fan to enjoy Butler's book. The discussion of sport takes a back seat to the fascinating cultural insight and comparisons to American culture.” —Vice on A Cuban Boxer's Journey

“A subtle and powerful examination of Cuba, as seen through the eyes of its most celebrated boxers. Filled with memorable characters caught in the middle of an existential struggle.” —Steve Fainaru, Pulitzer Prize–winning coauthor of The Duke of Havana: Baseball, Cuba, and the Search for the American Dream on A Cuban Boxer's Journey

From the Publisher

04/27/2015
In this striking memoir, writer and filmmaker Butler examines his bittersweet love affair with Cuba through the lens of boxing. Butler, a trained fighter himself, first visited the island to write about the national boxing team, which has grabbed 67 Olympic medals since 1968 (in a country with a smaller population than the New York metro area). As Butler pursues boxers, he finds himself immersed in the chaos and contradictions of Cuban society: shortages, sex work, police surveillance, desperate immigration, and the citizens’ sardonic patriotism, humor, and endless creativity. Shuttling between the stories of two of the greatest Cuban boxing champions—one who left (Guillermo Rigondeaux Ortiz) and one who stayed (Teófilo Stevenson—Butler delineates the costs of defying Uncle Sam for a half century. Cuba lies at the heart of the book, but Butler’s quest also leads him from his hometown of Vancouver to Mike Tyson’s Vegas mansion, an affair with a prostitute in Madrid, and a boxing match in Tijuana. More artist than journalist, Butler approaches his material slantwise, and much of his prose is fluid and searching. As he watches Havana’s labyrinth of jury-rigged 1950s cars and decaying mansions slowly succumb to the market economy, Butler makes clear that this is not an unmixed blessing. At times, Butler can lapse into abstraction and his hardboiled romanticism can become too familiar, but he has produced a book worthy of Cuba’s beauty and sorrow. (June)

Publishers Weekly

There's nothing in the world like America's grasping, oversexed, blundering, blustery and oft-deadly relationship with Cuba. Charting this fever dream, this illness of love and fear, requires a poet's ear, an outsider's eye, a boxer's clinical cruelty, and an unhealthy attraction to breakage. I give you Brin-Jonathan Butler. Anyone can--and, especially now, will--tell you what to think about Cuba. But no one can show you better how the place makes you feel.

Sports Illustrated Senior Writer and author of Pit S.L. Price

In The Domino Diaries, Brin-Jonathan Butler writes like a heavyweight champion: Tyson's power, Ali's elegance, and Joe Louis's humanity, all of them are on display here. Writing, like boxing, is a solitary endeavor, one that gets displayed nakedly, for better or worse, to the world. This engrossing work not only looks at the sweeping world, it delves into the darkness of being alone with your aloneness. A total knockout.

New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Chi Charles Bock

★ 05/01/2015
Butler (A Cuban Boxer's Journey) asks you to imagine walking down the street and encountering a beautiful, sensuous woman. You catch her eye and she smiles, baring rotted teeth, a situation that is too common in Cuba. He also asks that you consider that many Cubans love their education and health-care systems and still praise the revolution; while others, despise their living conditions, set out on rafts to escape; and yet others, such as prominent Cuban athletes who are revered for staying home even though they could become wealthy in the United States, are conflicted. These disconnects typify the Cuba that Butler, a Canadian drawn by a love of Ernest Hemingway and boxing, found during visits over a dozen years to this paradoxical island. Just a few of the experiences he relates are interviewing the person who was the inspiration for Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea and even boxing legend Teofilo Stevenson, who turned down millions to stay in Cuba and ultimately died an impoverished alcoholic after bedding one of Fidel Castro's granddaughters. VERDICT Focusing on Dickensian characters as well as boxing, Butler's gonzo journalism should have broad appeal.—Jim Burns, formerly with Jacksonville P.L., FL

Library Journal

2015-03-15
Though categorized as a memoir, the most compelling parts of this disjointed narrative concern the Cuba that the author has explored trying to come to terms with a story. Butler (A Cuban Boxer's Journey: Guillermo Rigondeaux, from Castro's Traitor to American Champion, 2014) delivers colorful writing and insightful analysis, but a slight shift in perspective would have resulted in a better book about the author's subject: Cuba and why some athletes choose to defect and others remain. Plainly an author with literary ambitions beyond journalism, Butler writes of the essence of boxing and his discovery of it, of his alcoholic father, and of the sense of mission that compelled him to visit Cuba, return multiple times, and put himself in political peril there. He is oddly reticent for a memoirist on other parts of his life, including his marriage, mentioned only as an afterthought as he details his relationship with a beautiful woman of Cuban descent. Butler invokes many literary antecedents, not only the obligatory Hemingway, but also Kundera, Calvino, and Strindberg. Rather than enhancing his portrait of Cuba, its ineffable beauty and sorrow, its athletes who face a dilemma in which there is collateral damage to friends and family, its women who are as available as they are irresistible, his excursions away from his focus on the island only serve to distract. "What's a million dollars to the love of eight million Cubans?" the author quotes Olympic boxing champ Teófilo Stevenson, the Muhammad Ali of Cuba, who spurned more than that to fight his American counterpart (but who only consented to an interview with the author for money). Yet for the woman who would become his mistress, "Cuba was a bear trap where the only means of escape required amputating vital portions of her soul." The book is by no means a political polemic but a nuanced portrait of the grays where reality lies between the black and white. When Butler maintains his focus on Cuba, vivid passages and provocative experiences illuminate an island of ambiguity.

Kirkus Reviews