Story of Cuban Underground Freedom Fighters to be Topic of Historical Society Program

Havana, Cuba, 1960. The euphoria following
the nation’s successful revolution the previous year has waned among large
sectors of the population.  Cuba’s new
leader, Fidel Castro, after having promised to restore democracy to the
troubled island, is moving the country toward a Communist dictatorship.  In response, democratic forces launch an
anti-government insurgency to save Cuba from totalitarian darkness.  This struggle forms the basis of the trilogy
of historical fiction that is The Unbroken Circle series.  The story centers on the middle class Leon family who
is caught up in a world of warfare, betrayal, and separation during the early
years of the Cuban Revolution.

In Book I, The
Struggle Begins, Goyo Leon, a devoted teacher and family man, is recruited
into the anti-Castro underground after his father is killed at the hands of
Castro’s henchmen.  He and other family
members subsequently become more deeply involved in the pro-democracy struggle
every day.  Told with heart-pounding
suspense of a Cold War saga and the poignancy of a family drama, The Struggle Begins sets the stage for
Book II, Freedom Betrayed, the story
of the Goyo’s and other family members’ participation in the Bay of Pigs
invasion.  After the invasion, the two
youngest members of the Leon
family are separated from the family after being sent away on an airlift of
Cuban refugee children.

In a program sponsored by the Middlesex County Historical
Society, Victor Triay, the author of these spellbinding books, will speak about
how he came to write the series, about the characters, and about the history
behind the fiction at a program to be held on Tuesday, February 18 at 7:00 pm
in the Hubbard Room at Russell Library. 
He will also recount his experiences researching the many events
depicted in the books.  

Triay, the son of Cuban exiles, was raised in Miami, a center of the
Cuban exile community.  He received his
PhD. in History from Florida State University
in 1995 and has been a professor in history at Middlesex Community College
since 1992.  His first book, Fleeing Castro: Operation Pedro Pan and the
Cuban Children’s Program, was followed by Bay of Pigs: An Oral History of Brigade 2506, which received the
2001 Samuel Proctor Oral History Prize of the Florida Historical
Association.  Copies of Books I and II in
the Unbroken Circle series will be
available for purchase and inscription. 
Russell Library, located at 123
Broad Street, Middletown,
is handicap accessible.  This program is
free and open to the public.  For further
information, contact the Historical Society at 860-346-0746.