BLACK WITCH MOTH

In this novel, an artist travels to Cuba on a spiritual journey to communicate with his deceased father.

Painter Julian Valladares grew up hearing stories about Ernest Hemingway from his father, Ramón, who for many years worked as a major domo for the writer when he lived in Cuba. As a result, Ramón becomes obsessed with the novelist and writes a book about his stay in Cuba, a work that makes him something of a celebrity among Hemingway scholars and enthusiasts. Ramón is also a priest in the Palo Monte religious tradition, one that combines African, Cuban, and Christian beliefs into a seamless whole. He introduces his son to this spiritual practice, a process lucidly depicted by Curry. Once Ramón dies, Julian is filled with a desperate yearning to reconnect with his Cuban heritage and his religious upbringing as well as to talk with his father once more. Julian travels to Cuba with his best friend, Max Albury, and the two meet up with Phoebe Brennan and Mira Stadler, both Hemingway scholars, at an academic colloquium dedicated to the luminary. But Julian informs Max that he’s really there to take part in an ancient ritual that promises to permit him to see Ramón again, one in which there is “no guaranteed outcome,” as his spiritual guide, Caridad Arango, ominously puts it. The author conjures a tantalizingly complex Cuba, a mysterious place in which oppression, poverty, and anguish are concealed beneath a topsoil of cultural vitality. Moreover, he insightfully discusses Hemingway’s own fascination with Cuba, a place where he found great inspiration for his writing. But the plot moves slowly and is sometimes more stilted than spiritually engaging. And the religious element of Julian’s quest is sometimes rendered in contemporary literature formulas. Here, Julian describes his desire to return to his “spiritual home”: “How do we find our way back? How do we connect to what is ours, what is in our souls and in our DNA? I hope that when we die in exile, we are no longer disconnected. I hope the spirit mother finds us and brings us home.”

An intriguing but familiar tale of spiritual longing.