THE INSATIABLE SPIDERMAN

Dirty Havana Trilogy was hugely acclaimed for its honest depiction of a Cuban capital characterised by sleaze, sex, poverty and hedonism. In The Insatiable Spiderman we see the return of its anti-hero, who is again prowling the streets of Havana. Pedro Juan''s relationship with his wife is in terminal decline. He can no longer face kissing her on the mouth and the trappings of domestic bliss hold no charms for this most restless and predatory of men. Our narrator''s interests lie elsewhere: in the infinite possibilities of a chaotic Caribbean city and the many chancers, artists and prostitutes who roam the streets in search of fresh experience. In his inimitably uncompromising and exhilarating style, Pedro Juan Gutierrez again takes the reader on a journey into the underbelly of contemporary Havana - a world of easy sex, hard drinking and humorous anecdote that will be all too recognisable to the Gutierrez connoisseur. Cuban writer Gutiérrez has mined and loosely fictionalized his own life in creating Pedro Juan, a Havana writer, in two previous collections of linked vignettes, Dirty Havana Trilogy (2000) and Tropical Animal (2003). This book offers more of the same, and the formula, like the line outside of a poorly stocked Havana fish store, is wearying. Pedro Juan''s adventures with various women feature a kind of modulated macho: he''s not particularly interested in any of them other than physically, especially wife Julia, but he''s very good at articulating his boredom and their various flaws. His travels around Cuba and his liaisons, however, continue to reveal slices of Cuban life. This time we meet a washed-up boxer touchingly devoted to his philandering wife; Pedro Juan''s superstitious mother, who lives across town; an old woman who sells useless books out of her home; various lovers from various times in his life, who call or whom he runs into on the street; and many others. Heat, listlessness and varying degrees of lust are constants, and Pedro Juan''s vague frustrations, this time out, become the reader''s. (Feb. 27)