cover image Shango

Shango

James Roberto Curtis. Arte Publico Press, $11.95 (198pp) ISBN 978-1-55885-096-5

Curtis (a professor and author of two works of nonfiction) has a smart idea in this novel about a Cuban American graduate student in Miami drawn into the occult world of Santeria, but artless delivery and one-dimensional characters render this effort flat and amazingly dull for a story with so much gore and sex. Miguel is a fully assimilated American student hanging out on the beach with his Anglo, former-cheerleader girlfriend, Vicki, when he happens to read a newspaper article about a skull being stolen for a Santeria ritual. Intrigued, he and Vicki visit a botanica, where they meet an obese man and a beautiful young woman, Ileana. Miguel approaches an ethnography professor about researching Santeria for his course, and the two quickly become involved in a police investigation involving the original skull theft-apparently a signal that murder is in the offing. Miguel and Ileana become lovers, although it is never quite clear whether this occurs because they are attracted to each other or because Ileana mixes their bodily fluids in a jar. The narrative is in the past tense, but occasionally characters reminisce in the present; and certain sections are related in the present tense-presumably to add drama-but the narration then slides back into the past without any demarcation. These shifts are just part of the sudden changes in both narrative and characterization that burden a weak story. (Apr.)