Product Description

Sexy, sordid and sleazy, Tropical Animal brings to mind the likes of Miller and Bukowski but is unmistakably, and inimitably, it's own thing. Pursued by Gloria, a proud and sophisticated prostitute on a mission to curb his predatory instincts, Pedro Juan is holed-up in his crumbling Havana apartment, painting. An invitation to Sweden, seems to offer him a way out. However he soon finds himself haunted by memories of Gloria and their wild sex together, and increasingly uninspired by his new environment. Does Pedro Juan, legendary sexual conquistador finally have to admit that the game is over? Or do his hedonistic instincts have juice enough to keep him active yet?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1801055 in Books
• Published on: 2003-04-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Gutiérrez's first book published in the U.S., Dirty Havana Trilogy, was a series of loosely connected vignettes chronicling the rough and tumble lives of Cuban down-and-outs buoyed by cheap rum, marijuana, petty crime and insatiable sexual appetites. Like that work, this murkily autobiographical novel is narrated by Pedro Juan, a 50 year-old former journalist and indomitable urban flaneur. When we first meet Pedro Juan, he's seducing Agneta, a frigid administrator at a Swedish university, with nude photos sent in the mail. At the same time he is busy with Gloria, a prostitute in his crumbling Havana apartment building who'd like him to settle down and give her babies. Intractable as ever, Pedro Juan goes to Stockholm for a literature seminar organized by Agneta, who becomes his "Swedish lover." Restless after a few months of solitude, salmon and a woman who just can't let loose between the sheets, he returns to Cuba and his "depraved" Gloria, a woman who enjoys being whipped in bed. Lurid sadomasochism, graphic descriptions of bestiality and generally brutish behavior (the "animal" of the title refers to Pedro Juan, who boasts that "what attracts me is filth") could offend, though most of the Hobbesian sentiment is excessive to the point of the grotesquely absurd. A colorful mix of Fellini and Bergman, Gutiérrez's atmospheric novel deftly mixes the rude with the refined. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Gutierrez's previous work, Dirty Havana Trilogy (2001), attracted attention as a modern Cuban permutation of the picaresque narrative, a political obloquy so thoroughly drenched with debauchery that reviewers could not quote its pithiest passages. Though no less sexually saturated, his follow-up compounds its commentary by transplanting its familiar Pedro Juan to sterile Sweden. There he finds quiet and studies contrast while digging into the reserved and perhaps prudish Agneta, who resists his objectification if not his advances. But Pedro Juan's thoughts often return to Gloria, the insatiable Havana prostitute, and readers are frequently and explicitly reminded of the old adage about taking the autobiographical protagonist out of dirty Havana but not the other way around. Those who loved the earlier work for its raw Tropic of Cancer flavor will probably be satisfied by the chaser's many lewd interludes, but those readers after political invective may be put off by this selection's complicated, evolving, and undoubtedly affectionate relationship with Cuba, where the protagonist returns for something resembling a happy ending (and the author still resides). Brendan Driscoll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
'Grotesquely compelling... Gutierrez appears destined to become a cult writer.' Times Literary Supplement

Cuban poet and novelist Gutierrez (Dirty Havana Trilogy, 2002, not reviewed) takes another tropical-flavored stab at the old-fashioned cockmansroman. In his youth, Pedro Juan was christened the man with the "golden" member, and, at 50, he's still got it. Within the first few pages, he has phone sex with Agneta, a Swedish woman he seduced with naked photographs; pontificates on the political good of sleeping with black women; absentmindedly fondles the "mental defective" downstairs neighbor in the lift ("she says very little, but she groans well") and dreams about stimulating a male monkey. Enter Gloria, a 29-year-old Havana mulatta, who alternately begs papi to whip and impregnate her, and buys him rum and beach trips with the proceeds from paying customers. Pedro Juan is certain that she's the subject of his second novel and, perhaps, his future wife. But when the Swede offers him a flimsy academic fellowship, as well as her substantial female companionship, Gloria, a professional colleague, understands. Thus Pedro Juan undertakes a merry international caper at waist-level, while spilling hard-won truths, such as race-based differences in crotch odors; the erotic necessity of sweat and armpit hair; why women prefer men who beat them and why intellectuals are bad in bed. But disappointment lies ahead: Despite having large Scandinavian breasts, the Swede is reluctant to participate in many bedroom activities, eats regular meals (mostly bread and salmon), drinks tea during the rum hour, and even requests warm milk after a long night of clubbing. The Swede, for her part, becomes a little queasy when Pedro Juan describes coupling with barnyard animals and lesbians (who love to be sodomized). He marvels that she just doesn't get it, chucks that damn chilly Swede, and warms up next to Gloria when she is, you know, free. Gloria sweetly rolls a roomful of sailors and comes back with enough pocket money for the month. Could it be time to settle down? Could be, love, could be. An exuberant attempt to go where many, many men have gone before. (Kirkus Reviews)