From Publishers Weekly
The author of Don Bueno, a native of Pakistan who lives in Texas, writes in the surrealist mode common to much Latin American fiction. Felipe Gamboa, a government clerk in a mythical South American country, forbids a young suitor, Federico, to woo his daughter Mariana. Neither a revolutionary nor a troublemaker, Felipe is shortly afterward arrested on suspicion of threatening to overthrow the government and dumped into a small boat miles from habitation. Federico, in despair over the loss of Mariana, is picked up at a carnival by an aging courtesan and eventually introduced to a kind of international pimp, well acquainted with women eager to buy Federico's company. Felipe, meanwhile, having drifted to safety on a small island, marries and begets Herminia, in whom his lost Mariana is recreated. When Herminia is 16Mariana's age when her father was arrestedFederico is sent to reclaim the island. Federico has never stopped thinking about Mariana, and seeing Herminia he is stirred with memories of his long-repressed love. But tragedy waits for the players in this convoluted drama, which is burdened with a tangled narrative thread, an unlikely series of coincidences and puppet-like characters who move not by volition but by their author's whim.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
In an unnamed, modern South American city, fate provides the cruelest humor, taunting Felipe Gamboa with unrealized dreams of wealth and then casting him back into torturous reality. Handsome Federico, too, has dreams; clutching a talisman retrieved from a magical shop, he wishes for love. Fate complies with a small Miami house and a gigolo's portion of aged lovers. Next fate leads Federico and Felipe on a fantastic journey to an abandoned island in a wicked parody of The Tempest. Ghose's tenth work of fiction is further testimony to this cosmopolitan writer's imaginative skills. While comparison with Garcia Marquez is unavoidable, Ghose forges an original blend of fantasy and harsh realism in expressing his uniquely humorous vision of man's dilemma. Highly recommended. Paul E. Hutchison, English Dept., Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
