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halojedha4/5. Whoa, this is wild. I picked it up in Housman's Radical Booksellers in Kings Cross, where a staff note recommended it as "the most bonkers thing I've ever read".
In a near future dystopic Santo Domingo, acid rain falls on dead seas, after a chemical spill and a tsunami has destroyed all marine life in the bay. Acilde Figueroa has escaped her life as a rent boy, and now finds herself at the heart of a Santería prophecy. With the help of a sacred (and now immensely valuable) anemone, she has been chosen to travel back in time and stop the seas from dying. Her price: the injection which will complete her transition into the man she's always known herself to be.
In the early 2000s, deadbeat visual artist Argenis Luna works as a fake psychic for a phone line, but he can't even keep that terrible job. Argenis is a talented painter, and a malevolent son of a bitch who suppresses his unacknowledged queerness with violent homophobic and misogynistic thoughts.
As the now-male Acilde travels back in time, he encounters Argenis and exploits his artistic talent to raise funds for his marine preservation project. After getting stung by the same anemone, Argenis too travels back in time, and struggles to maintain a double life as both modern artist and 17th century buccaneer along the same coastline.
Argenis and Acilde's lives intertwine in multiple timelines, as Argenis works to create art and hang onto his sanity in the face of 17th century violence and 21st century expectations, and Acilde finds his sacred conservation mission challenged by the temptations of 21st century wealth and comfort.
This packs a lot into a slim volume, with restless punk prose and vivid characterisation and details. It's full of unexpected twists and turns. The different timelines are shown rather than told, and it took me a while to get to grips with who was who and what was happening when. I had to flick back and forth a lot to update my picture of events as I started to figure out what was going on.
I love the strong beginning, with Acilde's backstory and transformation. Argenis' entry into the story too is compelling, and I wanted to read more of him doing tarot readings in a dingy office and convincing sad white women that he can see their future. Despite his many failings, I found myself rooting for him, cheering him on to achieve artistic success and come to terms with his sexuality. But Argenis' future - including in the past - is full of disappointments.
I wanted a more optimistic ending, although I understand why I didn't get one. I found the end of Acilde's story a bit unconvincing - I felt like his character development was a bit thin and I didn't understand why he made the decisions he did. I'd have liked to see the sacred Santería prophecy threat wrapped up. But despite an anticlimactic ending, there's a lot to like here. The artistic promise of the early chapters is enticing, and I'm already tempted to revisit them. This is a book that provokes us to do better than its self-indulgent characters, artistically and politically, with the threat of what awaits us if we don't.
In a near future dystopic Santo Domingo, acid rain falls on dead seas, after a chemical spill and a tsunami has destroyed all marine life in the bay. Acilde Figueroa has escaped her life as a rent boy, and now finds herself at the heart of a Santería prophecy. With the help of a sacred (and now immensely valuable) anemone, she has been chosen to travel back in time and stop the seas from dying. Her price: the injection which will complete her transition into the man she's always known herself to be.
In the early 2000s, deadbeat visual artist Argenis Luna works as a fake psychic for a phone line, but he can't even keep that terrible job. Argenis is a talented painter, and a malevolent son of a bitch who suppresses his unacknowledged queerness with violent homophobic and misogynistic thoughts.
As the now-male Acilde travels back in time, he encounters Argenis and exploits his artistic talent to raise funds for his marine preservation project. After getting stung by the same anemone, Argenis too travels back in time, and struggles to maintain a double life as both modern artist and 17th century buccaneer along the same coastline.
Argenis and Acilde's lives intertwine in multiple timelines, as Argenis works to create art and hang onto his sanity in the face of 17th century violence and 21st century expectations, and Acilde finds his sacred conservation mission challenged by the temptations of 21st century wealth and comfort.
This packs a lot into a slim volume, with restless punk prose and vivid characterisation and details. It's full of unexpected twists and turns. The different timelines are shown rather than told, and it took me a while to get to grips with who was who and what was happening when. I had to flick back and forth a lot to update my picture of events as I started to figure out what was going on.
I love the strong beginning, with Acilde's backstory and transformation. Argenis' entry into the story too is compelling, and I wanted to read more of him doing tarot readings in a dingy office and convincing sad white women that he can see their future. Despite his many failings, I found myself rooting for him, cheering him on to achieve artistic success and come to terms with his sexuality. But Argenis' future - including in the past - is full of disappointments.
I wanted a more optimistic ending, although I understand why I didn't get one. I found the end of Acilde's story a bit unconvincing - I felt like his character development was a bit thin and I didn't understand why he made the decisions he did. I'd have liked to see the sacred Santería prophecy threat wrapped up. But despite an anticlimactic ending, there's a lot to like here. The artistic promise of the early chapters is enticing, and I'm already tempted to revisit them. This is a book that provokes us to do better than its self-indulgent characters, artistically and politically, with the threat of what awaits us if we don't.