Taming the Divine Heron

Deep Vellum continues its revival of Mexican writer Pitol (1933–2018; The Love Parade) with this ribald postmodern classic, originally published in 1988 and appearing in English for the first time. An unnamed aging writer, convinced that his former books have been failures, sets out to write his masterpiece. The bulk of the novel comprises that masterwork, a picaresque narrative of another contemporary author, Dante C. de la Estrella, who regales his well-to-do hosts in the city of Tepoztlán with the story of his journey to Istanbul and encounter with Marietta Karapetiz, a “celebrated and hardened habituée of the seediest of banquets, the most repulsive of feasts, and the most unbridled of orgies.” Karapetiz is also one of the world’s foremost experts on Nikolai Gogol, whose work Estrella is devoted to, and about whom Karapetiz has developed a scandalous theory—that the Ukrainian master’s writings were inspired by the devil himself. A battle of wills erupts between Estrella and the larger-than-life Karapetiz as he attempts to disprove her Gogol theory, only to find himself pulled deeper and deeper into her sensational underworld. Though the plot is convoluted, each page is lively and baroque, all the way up to the bizarre, paganistic conclusion. Like the vivacious Karapetiz, Pitol is never at a loss for words. This does not disappoint. (Nov.)