The Review of Contemporary Fiction
Dirty Havana Trilogy: A Novel in Stories by Pedro Juan GutierrezDaniel Garrett
Pedro Juan Gutierrez. Dirty Havana Trilogy: A Novel in Stories. Trans. Natasha Wimmer. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2001. 392 pp. $25.00.
Pedro Juan Gutierrez’s Dirty Havana Trilogy is a three-part collection of interconnected stories about its narrator Pedro Juan and his friends, lovers, and neighbors in 1990s Cuba. It doesn’t pretend to be a grand narrative or an articulation of life’s ultimate purpose, and yet it is that paradoxical thing: a truthful novel. The use of that author’s name as that of the narrator is an indication of the book’s mix of fact and fiction. The novel is a countertext both to the lie that Castro’s Cuban revolution produced a utopia and also to the belief that elegant words, lofty ideals, and admirable situations are the best that literature has to offer. Despite Cuba’s admirable educational and health programs, there remains racism, poverty, and misuses of official power-all of which encourage cynicism and even animal responses. Pedro Juan’s voice is earthy, honest, intelligent, and self-critical as it speaks of blood, breasts, butts, cocks, misery, money, poverty, rage, semen, sweat, tears, and work. Pedro Juan, a journalist fired for trying to tell the truth, is forced into other forms of work-such as selling lobsters, meat, and tin buckets, pimping, and various kinds of hard physical labor-and he sometimes finds himself in jail. He gets drunk often and has sex just as often with women of all ages, colors, shapes and sizes. His wife has abandoned him for an art career in America. His acquaintances are busy with adultery, prostitution, matricide, gambling, murder, disease, and quick ways to make a dollar (or peso). One reads of Cuba but knows this is a human reality in every age. This is a fun book full of sad facts. [Daniel Garrett]