2018 School Spending Survey Report
Heretics
Farrar. Mar. 2017. 544p. tr. from Spanish by Anna Kushner. ISBN 9780374168858. $27; ebk. ISBN 9780374714284. F
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Celebrated Cuban author Padura's many works include the much-translated Havana tales starring detective Mario Conde. But though Conde appears here, this splendid saga is much more than a mystery. As the doomed St. Louis sails into Havana's harbor in 1939, carrying Jews seeking asylum, a Polish Jewish boy named Daniel Kaminsky stands on the dock, awaiting his parents and sister with his uncle Joseph ("Pepe the Purseman"). The Kaminskys hope to secure their freedom with a family treasure, a small Rembrandt of Christ, but Cuban corruption combines with U.S. and Canadian indifference to return the ship's passengers to their doom. Decades later, Daniel's American son Elias travels to Havana, asking Conde's help in tracing the history of the painting, now mysteriously up for auction.
VERDICT The intensive, richly detailed narrative is at once a portrait of Daniel's Cuban upbringing, a meditation on anti-Semitism, and an intriguing account of the painting. What did the Cuban police know, and was a murder involved? Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 9/12/16.]
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