Book Review: Havana Red by Leonardo Padura

Heat, sweat, cooking, religion, poverty, appearance and disguise, gritty dialogue, gritty sex--these are all hung on the clothesline of Leonardo Padura's novel, Havana Red.

It is a crime novel of sorts, with a tough talking, tough living Havana police lieutenant Mario Conde, aka "The Count", ostensibly about a murder of a local mystic homosexual masquerading as a transvestite. (Not for nothing the original name of the book was "Masks.") This is the third of four novels about The Count, strangely only the third and fourth released in English. But, like so many modern detective stories, it has higher aims. Its larger theme is art, deception, bigotry and, most importantly, Cuba itself.

The Count is introduce on suspension from his job because of an unexplained dust-up with a fellow cop. Alexis Arayan, a local homosexual with important family connections is found murdered in transvestite garb and The Count is called upon to investigate. The crime leads him through the the underworld of homosexuals, the political discarded, and the creative arts (the Count has some aspirations--historically, at least--as a writer). He meets Alberto Marques, an unashamed copy of Virgilio Pinera, and he gradually overcomes his macho distaste for the man and his lifestyle as he becomes drawn into Marques' experiences as a persecuted--and prosecuted--homosexual artist. Marques guides The Count through this world like Virgil (the pun intended, certainly) and teaches The Count about the nuances of the homosexual world and their importance in the murder. In the background is Marques' terrible experiences with the State's intolerance and rigidity, the corruption of the police department now being investigated by a new and more honest State, The Count's close relationship with Skinny who was badly injured in Cuba's military action in Angola, and The Count's suffocating anomie.

While a bit overwritten, this is an enjoyable read. The Count is an acceptable creative Cuban Marlow, the people are interesting and the rather simple crime story subservient to the real star of the show, Havana. The intense, earthy yearning of Havana and its people is wonderful here; the people yearn for each-other, as do Havana and her people. The real struggle is Havana's, her significant and heady substance fighting the distorting weight of poverty, gravity, heat and the inevitable violated social and political promises. And her hopes, that with all her broken earnest pieces a perhaps imaginary lovely past can ever be reassembled.