Tropical animal : a novel
/ Pedro Juan Gutiérrez ; translated from the Spanish by Peter Lownds
- 1st Carroll & Graf ed.
- New York : Carroll & Graf , 2005
- 308 p. ; 22 cm.
Tropical Animal brings the return of the already infamous Pedro Juan, the seductive protagonist at the heart of Dirty Havana Trilogy. 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, with a growing sense of melancholy as he observes the lives of the hustlers, hipsters, and hookers in the city below him. An invitation to Sweden, of all places - cold, unwelcoming, the antithesis of Pedro's Cuba - gives him an official way out, and the phone manner of his potential hostess offers incentive enough for him to leave for the literary life in Europe. However, once there he finds himself haunted by memories of the passionate Gloria and increasingly uninspired by his new environment.