Dancing to “Almendra”

Dancing to “Almendra” by Mayra Montero, translated by Edith Grossman (fiction, 264 pages)

I have been a very fortunate participant in LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers program. Since it started last May, I have requested books from seven of the nine batches that have been made available, and I’ve only been turned down once. I didn’t necessarily like all the books I’ve received, but I don’t necessarily like all the books I buy, so that’s fair enough. Up until now, they’ve all been ARCs, but Edith Grossman’s English translation of Mayra Montero’s Dancing to “Almendra” was published in 2007 (and was a New York Times Notable book that year), and it’s out in stores now in trade paperback (which is the format in which I received it).

Dancing to “Almendra” is a story of the Mafia in Havana (before Fidel Castro overthrew Fulgencio Batista and closed down the gambling industry), told (mostly at an odd remove) through the eyes of Joaquín Porrata, a young Cuban journalist. Porrata, an entertainment writer who desperately wants to move up to cover the underworld, is sent to write a story about a dead hippopotamus at the zoo and receives some information that sets him off investigating the New York shooting death of mob boss Umberto Anastasia. As a counterpoint to Joaquín’s story, we also hear the story of his lover Yolanda, a one-armed former magician’s assistant (and one-time lover of Mafia boss Santo Trafficante).

Montero’s characters are well drawn and quirky, and the book has some nice moments. However, Joaquín’s role as an outsider means that the story of the Mafia is frustratingly elliptical. Yolanda’s story, which could have made a good book on its own, doesn’t mesh well with the rest of the book and is also relegated to a peripheral role. As a reader, I would have preferred the story that wasn’t told to the one that was. In the end, I think the story runs out of steam.

2933 / 36600 pages. 8% done!

6 / 8 owned prior to 2008. 75%!

2 / 25 nonfiction. 8%!

3 / 8 global/translation. 38%!