Outcast.

John Walker is a professor of Spanish at Queen’s University.

Toronto-based, Cuban emigré novelist José Latour is rapidly gaining a reputation as one of the best detective crime novelists, especially since his novels are beginning to appear in English. A long-time member of the Cuban revolutionary establishment, government functionary, and privileged writer, Latour abandoned his country in 2002 for Spain, finally making his way here to Canada in 2004.

Outcast tells the story of a veteran teacher of English in Havana, Elliot Steill, who struggles to survive on his pittance of a teacher’s salary, whilst those in authority and party favourites live a life of luxury. Ordinary citizens have to combat the lack of basic foods, amenities, electricity, and Latour is not averse to portraying the abuses and excesses of a revolutionary movement which he knew so well and from which he profited—the economic apartheid, the rationing, the shortages, and of course the effects of the U.S. embargo from which the ordinary citizens suffered most. When the protagonist, meets up with a U.S. visitor who claims to know Elliot’s estranged American father, the story takes another turn, and he finds an opportunity to escape the island and finally lands in Miami. It is to Latour’s credit that his portrayal of Miami and its inhabitants is equally critical, as he sees the profits to be made from the corruption there, the smuggling, the drugs, and the police misconduct that provide Elliot with a more luxurious way of life, through contraband and car theft as he mixes with other Cuban exiles like himself and with mafiosi of all stripes. Latour does a good job portraying the human relations between the protagonist and the other types he meets in Miami, outcasts, outsiders like himself who profit from the so-called American dream, the much sought after American way of life.

José Latour, in this example of what is now being called the Cuban roman noir, views neither communism nor capitalism through rose-coloured spectacles. Outcast is a fast-paced, entertaining, page-turning thriller which captures the atmosphere of both Cuban and American society, and all their sordid aspects, to the credit of neither.