When I first met Patrick Symmes, he was sharing a joint with hookers in a Havana bar. The meeting wasn't in person but through a 1997 Harper's magazine article on Cuba, and I admired his verve and honesty.

Plenty of journalists write about visiting Cuba, but this was the first time one admitted joining and enjoying the sleaze -- and there is plenty to enjoy.

		"THE BOYS FROM DOLORES: FIDEL CASTRO'S CLASSMATES FROM REVOLUTION TO EXILE" By Patrick Symmes Pantheon ($26.95)

Now Symmes has written a serious book on Cuba, seen through the prism of the alumni of Colegio de Dolores, a Jesuit school in Santiago de Cuba, where Fidel and brother Raul Castro were enrolled.

Skipping from alumnus to alumnus, Symmes also travels through the history of the revolution and Castro's character.

Fidel Castro comes across as a complex character, half reckless courage and half calculated manipulation. While some of his actions have been daring, the Cuban leader himself has wrought the mythology of his personality and that of the long-lived and tattered revolution he has led.

The classmates are a mixed bunch. The school served the Santiago elite, so not surprisingly, many have gone into exile. Symmes reports that most have fallen victim to old age, including Castro. A handful of alumni remained in the island, with various degrees of fealty to the regime.

The writer reconstructs the rhythms of life in the school and in Santiago, Cuba's second city and eternal rival of Havana but at heart a provincial town.

Symmes has no political ax to grind. He places the revolution in perspective by comparing Cuba's woes to those of other Latin countries, something Castro's enemies seldom do.

"Which was better?" Symmes writes of Cuba with and without Castro, "repression and control, or freedom and chaos?"

He has no answer. What he has is heart, and his observations are on the money. He comes close, very close, to getting it right.

He notes the most obvious signs of the exiles' nostalgia-fed exaggeration about the old times. But he does not know such exaggeration has been ridiculed for decades.

Cuba before Castro was full of corruption, injustice, tyranny, violent instability. It was also full of a sweetness that was as real as it was fragile and mortal.