An Echo of Paradise

The Mad Patagonian #1

by Javier Pedro Zabala, Peter Damian Bellis (Editor)

The novel as a whole follows the fortunes of Escolástica and Isabel Vda De Miranda, two clairvoyant sisters from Logroño, Spain, and their descendants. The younger sister, Escolástica, emigrates from Spain to Cuba with her uncle, Andres Escoraz, in 1899 in search of the paradise of new beginnings. Her descendants eventually make their way from Santiago, Cuba to Havana to Miami. The older sister, Isabel, marries into a family from Vera de Bidasoa, Spain and moves to the mountains and later fights against the Fascists. Her grandchildren immigrate to the United States in 1939 and also eventually settle in Miami. Neither branch of the family knows of the other.

Part One tells three stories. The first story focuses on the journey of two teachers searching for Travis Lauterbach, who is love with Tommie Rodriguez, the great-great-granddaughter of Andres Escoraz; and an ex-hippie named Mick, who acts as a mentor to Travis. The second story is about Xavier and Soledad Mendoza (the grandchildren of Isabel), what their lives were like in Spain, how they came to the United States, and how they own a brothel/café called The Patagonian Café in Little Havana, Miami, and how they come to know the two teachers from the first story. This story is told by Xavier as he nears the end of his life. The third story is about a miscreant named Malachi, who works for Bull and Horse Velázquez, who own a pornography film company. Malachi is dating a beautiful woman named Gisela, who works at The Patagonian Café. He then runs afoul of Bull and Horse (who are determined to kill Malachi), and so involves everyone he knows in trying to escape (including Xavier and Soledad and the two teachers). Part One ends with a scene presented as a scene from a movie script THE HAIL OF BULLETS SCENE AT LA MAMACITA’S.

388 pages, Paperback

Published August 20, 2021

About the author

Javíer Pedro Zabala was a product of the multicultural forces that have been shaping the Americas for over five-hundred years. His father, Miguel Octavio Cercas, was born in Matamoros, a border town in northeastern Mexico. His mother, Anabelle Elizabeth Zabala, whose surname he ultimately kept, was from Miami, Florida. Zabala was born in Miami in 1950 but moved to Mexico with his father in 1964. In 1976, while living in Mexico City, he married Blanca Barutti, a recent graduate of the Facultad de Medicina UNAM. Blanca was originally from Santiago, Cuba. After a short honeymoon, the couple moved to Cuba and took up residence in a tiny cinder block house with a tin roof and a view of the Caribbean Sea in La Boca, Cuba, a small seaside village in Sancti Spíritus province. He lived in La Boca for the last twenty-six years of his life. He was unknown as a writer during his lifetime and died in June 2002 at the age of fifty-two of an aneurysm, two months after he had completed his novel, without fanfare, unnoticed by anyone save his daughter.

Reviews

[Jonathan yates · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew reading the introduction that this whole story of the writer was clearly fake, the whole going on a bender with Bolano routine was beyond the realms of possibility of actually happening, however so far this thing is a bit of a fun fantasy and feels a bit like outsider art, this reminds me of Vollman quite a bit.