The Delicate Beast

Celestin debuts with an intriguing if muted portrait of an art history professor and his early life in the Caribbean. A prologue set in 1995 Brooklyn sets the stage, as protagonist Robert Carpentier tries to dissuade a fellow partygoer who’s bent on returning to a besieged Sarajevo during the Yugoslav Wars. Robert’s protest is an expression of his own ambivalence toward home. The novel’s lengthy first section chronicles his early years in an unnamed Caribbean republic that “seemed suspended in perpetual peace and stable hierarchy” until 1963, when a doctor dubbed “the Mortician” for his resemblance to an undertaker was elected president. After the Mortician enacts an anti-communist and populist crackdown, an 11-year-old Robert flees with his family to New York City. Later sections cover Robert’s education in Europe in the 1970s, his return to the U.S. in 1980 for the professorship, and his marriage to UNICEF worker Eve. Robert reacts numbly to such catastrophes as the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and the novel explores the consequences of his emotional guardedness with elegance and ambiguity (“He had allowed no sorrow to touch him, steering recklessly toward a deceptive radiance”). Patient readers will find much to savor. (Feb.)