THE ENEMY BLOOD

by Luis Spota ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

Wounds of hunger (1957) was an unrelieved documentary of bullfighting -- this, as unsparing, follows the lives of the have-nots (presumably in Mexico) whose existence- and bare subsistence- is of sociological, rather than popular, interest. From the present to the past the details of Esteban's down spiral come into focus:- his affair with a midget which produced Sergio, a giant with a minute brain; his life with Estela and the train wreck that left him a maimed cripple with her daughter Sara- and Sergio- to support; the precarious living afforded by a small circus where he, as a clown, suffered the domination of blind Dimas and his woman, the omnipresent Cruz, and was compelled --by his impotent lust -- to watch Sara's whoring, to keep her from leaving him, to bring about an abortion for her. When he discovers her with Sergio, his jealous hatred insures she will be -- not dead -- but forever ruined for any other man. The incomplete, frustrated male, the squalor of the submerged, the hotness and cruelty of an alien society -- is a strong dosage that is better bottled into case histories than packaged as a popular novel.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1960

Categories: FICTION