Faded Dreams is an epic autobiography by my fellow writer and good friend Carlos Rubio. Beyond being a very personal story of a young man growing up to the backdrop of this remarkable country of Cuba, there is as well a political subplot of a country that is dragged through the mud by one of the most ruthless dictators in recent world history. The people who populate his world all fantastically come alive on the pages; Carlos does so well in telling how special they were to him, and are still special today. This book now gives us a close-up, in your face look at the very human side of Cuba as seen from a young man who lived there and experienced it as could be described as its rise and fall.

Carlos was sent to the United States at a young age by his parents after Castro took over. Things there only get worse. Living in the safety and prosperity of the United States as an adult, Carlos periodically looks at photographs of family and friends he was so fond of in those days before the Revolution. They are no longer alive, but his doting on those photos vividly brings them back to life on the pages -it gives the reader a sense of timelessness and tells how powerfully a childhood was impacted by those people, especially the incredible person that was his father, a man from whom he could never separate himself.