Alexis Valdés Shares His Difficult Childhood

May 18, 2022

Always with a wide smile and clean humor, the multifaceted Cuban comedian, playwright and actor Alexis Valdés radically changes tone with "Fear Made Us Strong," a memoir about a childhood full of beatings, scarcity and sadness.

If almost a decade ago the comedian made his literary debut with a light book of amusing stories and anecdotes ("With All My Humor"), in the work he will publish on April 26, he hits the reader with the account of years of abuse in a place wrongly called home.

In "Fear Made Us Strong" (Vintage Español) Valdés is not seeking to settle scores with his past or with his abusive stepfather, whom he refers to as the "unspeakable one," but rather to show that one can confront a "dormant pain" for years, the humorist explains in a telephone interview with Efe in Miami, where he has lived since 2005.

His was a childhood marked by his parents' divorce and the arrival at his home of a stepfather who discharged his human miseries in the form of beatings and threats, especially toward little Alexis, a sensitive boy in whom the "unspeakable one" saw the image of his father, the other man in his then-wife's life.

Without being very clear whether it would be a short story or whether the protagonist would be little Alexis or an unknown child, Valdés ultimately opted for a memoir that would carry the message that one can "deal with the ghosts" of the past.

And it allowed him to do an exercise to understand the reasons why his stepfather, himself mistreated as a child, was so cruel to his daughters and stepchildren and, in some way, allowed him to be generous and forgive.

"I don't feel resentment or hate. I don't have to take revenge. The book is an act of liberation" and it carries the message that "sometimes the good guys win," because, in the end—he explains—he triumphed in his particular war with the stepfather and not only "got ahead," but has a good life.

The photograph on the cover makes the message clear: a Valdés with a hard gaze, saying "Stop abuse, let's change the story."

The comedian, who is preparing to maintain his tradition on May 8 of bringing his usual comedy show to the Miami-Dade County Auditorium for Mother's Day, says that the title of these memoirs is accurate and that, after the fear, he now feels "strong."

The unexpected success and public recognition, both in Cuba and in Spain—he explains—not only helped him recover his so-damaged self-esteem but "transformed" him and allowed him to feel "accepted" and grow as a human being.

"I was that sad, anxious child, whose mistakes were poorly tolerated because I lived in an oppressive environment because of my stepfather," he recalls about that boy who "from whom nothing was expected" became Cuba's most recognized humorist.

"It was as if life gave me a great applause, as if it told me: 'You've had it hard, you've struggled a lot, but here we are rewarding you,'" he points out.

Fortunately, he acknowledges, that childhood bitterness did not carry over into his humor, almost always luminous and optimistic, whether in comedy monologues, television, theater or film: "In me there is a secret hope that I can contribute a little to improving my place, my time."

And there is something of that in these memoirs, in which—despite living his childhood in a country where, as he says in the book, his generation was "demanded so much that they didn't let us be children"—he also reflects a joy of living and the hope that one day everything will be better.