The Death of Che Guevara

by Jay Cantor

In his critically acclaimed epic first novel, Jay Cantor, author of Krazy Kat and Great Neck , draws on history, myth, and his own prodigious imagination to take on the life and death of revolutionary icon Che Guevara.

In his now famous progress through modern times, Ernesto “Che” Guevara, the scion of a liberal Argentine family, abandoned a medical career to become a revolutionary. A fiery comrade of Fidel Castro’s who joined him in overthrowing the Cuban government of Baptista, Che later broke with Castro to lead a guerrilla movement in Bolivia. As the novel charts Che’s bold evolution, it also offers an incisive look at Latin America’s revolutionary struggles, an exploration of the nature of truth and storytelling, and a brilliant exegesis of the psychology of radical activisim.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Politics, Novels, 20th Century, War

592 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

Reviews

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Goodreads often makes me happy, but not when I find a novel so meaty & mighty as this one largely unreviewed. Jay Cantor's 1983 debut remains among the two or three foremost accomplishments of the American generation born after World War II -- as significant a work, in other words, as the best of Richard Powers or Tim O'Brien or Richard Price. Yet Cantor's name is considerably less known than any of theirs, and apparently readers are doing without the heady & sumptuous historical reframing offered by DEATH OF CHE GUEVARA.

A shame, because few novels will offer so many traditional satisfactions -- in particular deepening emotions & vivid action -- while at the same time showing such alertness to the challenge facing the tradition of long prose narratives. DEATH OF CHE GUEVARA works up great historical realism, including hair-raising battle scenes with the Cuban guerillas of 1956 and '57, packed with startling details like the taste of monkey meat during Che's '67 sojourn in the Bolivian jungle. Yet the book's multiple voices & approaches also break down each of its major lines of development, going so deeply into the story's central revolutionary conciousness as to raise probing questions about his calling.

Yet Che unites everything here, a kind of Christ even when he most closely suggests Caesar -- or the monomaniacal Ahab, to choose a literary reference this book invites. Cantor's allusions to Melville, subtly laid, are earned throughout by his complicated interplay of media (the diaries of different characters, for instance, generate fascinating counterpoint) & an overall inevitability that has the stuff of myth. There's genuine heroism in a number of Che's hard choices, & at the same time there's a self-destructiveness etched with fierce psychological accuracy.

But no summary in the internet's agate type can convey the richness of Cantor's achievement. None but a handful of recent US novels wring such mucky vitality out of social & economic facts of life, the constraints of class & wallet, & at the same time dramatizes a greater authorial awareness, a vista of history outside of anyone's particular time & flesh. For this kind of range and mastery, in fact, readers generally have to look to foreigners like Saramago or Pamuk. But such readers are poorer, by far, for failing to discover -- and devour -- THE DEATH OF CHE GUEVARA.

[Deborah Pickstone · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

It's a mind-blowing thing to find this novel almost unreviewed! It's a brave attempt and an interesting one, full of fact and humanness (which often seems to disappear from the Che legends) but....there are just too many directions and literary improvisations and oh, this book was just rather hard work. But at least someone did it; Che was worth the attention. I did much prefer his own autobiographical The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey, though.

[Julio The Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Let me say, at the risk of sounding ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by feelings of love." Ernesto "Che" Guevara. This amazing debut novel by Jay Cantor is an attempt to get inside the head of one of the most enigmatic and polarizing figures of the twentieth century. The United States wanted him dead, and got its wish. Millions around the world still revere his name. Who was the real "Che"? Cantor uses everything from newspaper chronologies to Bolivian Indian myths to circle around this question, if not fully provided an answer. Is his "Che" even fictional? Kudos for setting much of the novel where "Che" trained for guerrilla warfare and that is my home islet of the Isle of Pines.

[Pauline · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were interesting parts of this novel, but on the whole I found it hard to get through. Parts of it seem to go on and on and on without getting anywhere. Perhaps that is trying to say something about life and suffering and armed struggle, that it goes on and on and nothing seems to change. But it makes for difficult reading, and if I had not made up my mind to finish the book I'd have quit several times.

[Pete · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wanted to learn more about Ernesto “Che” Guevara and I ended up with this historical fiction novel, which wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, but I am very glad that I found this book. Cantor blends fact and fiction in order to humanize Che Guevara in a documentary style with corresponding letters and journal entries. Cantor portrays this legendary rebel as a person that struggles. One that struggles with his thoughts and convictions, with the physical demands of guerilla warfare, and with the shit in his pants.

The book was physically falling apart and I had to read in stacks, as if they were truly discovered letters and documents. My reading experience fit well with this telling of Che’s life. There is so much to this gem of a book and I urge you to read it.

[Juan Navarro · Rating 3 out of 5]

i didn't fell too confortable with the story telling but i think is really interesting to put the Che in different kind of light.