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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Cuban writer Gutiérrez has mined and loosely fictionalized his own life in creating Pedro Juan, a Havana writer, in two previous collections of linked vignettes, Dirty Havana Trilogy (2000) and Tropical Animal (2003). This book offers more of the same, and the formula, like the line outside of a poorly stocked Havana fish store, is wearying. Pedro Juan's adventures with various women feature a kind of modulated macho: he's not particularly interested in any of them other than physically, especially wife Julia, but he's very good at articulating his boredom and their various flaws. His travels around Cuba and his liaisons, however, continue to reveal slices of Cuban life. This time we meet a washed-up boxer touchingly devoted to his philandering wife; Pedro Juan's superstitious mother, who lives across town; an old woman who sells useless books out of her home; various lovers from various times in his life, who call or whom he runs into on the street; and many others. Heat, listlessness and varying degrees of lust are constants, and Pedro Juan's vague frustrations, this time out, become the reader's. (Feb. 27)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Gutierrez's Dirty Havana Trilogy (2000) was a debauchery-drenched picaresque narrative with political overtones, and its follow-up, Tropical Animal (2003), revealed its loosely autobiographical protagonist Pedro Juan's inability to extract his lust from his native Cuba. Gutierrez's latest again finds Pedro Juan chafing against constraints on his sex-fuelled aesthetic of freedom, but this time it is not poverty and political oppression but the familiar inertia of middle age that threatens to sap his creative energy. Pedro Juan's appetites for liquor and lasciviousness have not waned, but his sexual interludes are fewer and further between, and the women he pursues are less available; anxiety permeates as it did not before. He tolerates arguments with his stolid wife, visits with his superstitious elderly mother, and the corruption of local officials with a new complacency. Like most midlife crises, such changes can be awkward to witness, as a few clumsy Hemingway references in this selection demonstrate. But this novel also exudes a fresh honesty and hints that Gutierrez may be trying to find new literary horizons. Brendan Driscoll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
Cuban writer Gutiérrez has mined and loosely fictionalized his own life in creating Pedro Juan, a Havana writer, in two previous collections of linked vignettes, Dirty Havana Trilogy (2000) and Tropical Animal (2003). This book offers more of the same, and the formula, like the line outside of a poorly stocked Havana fish store, is wearying. Pedro Juan's adventures with various women feature a kind of modulated macho: he's not particularly interested in any of them other than physically, especially wife Julia, but he's very good at articulating his boredom and their various flaws. His travels around Cuba and his liaisons, however, continue to reveal slices of Cuban life. This time we meet a washed-up boxer touchingly devoted to his philandering wife; Pedro Juan's superstitious mother, who lives across town; an old woman who sells useless books out of her home; various lovers from various times in his life, who call or whom he runs into on the street; and many others. Heat, listlessness and varying degrees of lust are constants, and Pedro Juan's vague frustrations, this time out, become the reader's. (Feb. 27)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Gutierrez's Dirty Havana Trilogy (2000) was a debauchery-drenched picaresque narrative with political overtones, and its follow-up, Tropical Animal (2003), revealed its loosely autobiographical protagonist Pedro Juan's inability to extract his lust from his native Cuba. Gutierrez's latest again finds Pedro Juan chafing against constraints on his sex-fuelled aesthetic of freedom, but this time it is not poverty and political oppression but the familiar inertia of middle age that threatens to sap his creative energy. Pedro Juan's appetites for liquor and lasciviousness have not waned, but his sexual interludes are fewer and further between, and the women he pursues are less available; anxiety permeates as it did not before. He tolerates arguments with his stolid wife, visits with his superstitious elderly mother, and the corruption of local officials with a new complacency. Like most midlife crises, such changes can be awkward to witness, as a few clumsy Hemingway references in this selection demonstrate. But this novel also exudes a fresh honesty and hints that Gutierrez may be trying to find new literary horizons. Brendan Driscoll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
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Inside This Book Citations: This book cites 2 books Explore: Citations | Concordance | Text Stats Key Phrases - CAPs: Ana María, Casa Grande, Ana Maria, New York Browse Sample Pages: Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover | Surprise Me! |