Firefly

Cuban author Sarduy's visceral language is in full force throughout this translation of his first novel. This phantasmagoric bildungsroman opens with the freakish protagonist, Firefly, poisoning his entire family during a hurricane. Displaced and orphaned, he trawls the solitary dregs of a labyrinthine Cuban metropolis before being taken in by a charity house benefactress. There Firefly meets Ada, a fellow orphan who awakens his amorous desire, and begins shedding his naivete in a seedy urban underbelly teaming with slave auctions, bordellos, and beer halls; witnessing the horrors of sex trafficking in a secret subterranean lair. As Firefly pursues Ada, he must also pull her from the ravages of this diabolic industry running the city. Is the doctor who knows of his crimes tailing him or is this merely paranoia brought on by Firefly's guilty conscience? Sarduy creates a vertiginous account of urban decay, relishing in the moral ambiguity of his characters, the ethical sewage of humanity. At times Sarduy's descent to the lowest tier of human filth and his excessive jubilation of disgust is delivered with a heavy hand. However, Sarduy's ludic novel is a rowdy carnival ride through the grime of city life in a fantastically depicted Cuba. (Mar.)