Álvarez’s exile novel is a bricolage. There are scenes from Cuba itself, but also Miami, Mexico City and Berlin. The novel adopts the fractured narrative so beloved of postmodernism (or wherever it is we have got to), skipping not just from country to country but also across timelines. The unifying thread is a deadpan discomfort, shared by many of these characters, from the first person narrator to the female psychologist. There are various strands whose juxtaposition makes for an abrasive read: no sooner does the reader begin to connect with one sequence than they are thrown into another. It’s reminiscent of Enrigue’s Hypothermia or Luiselli’s Faces in the Crowd, other writers who appear to embrace a mosaic narrative, as they seek to portray the complexity of the modern day frontlines between first world and third.
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