Return to "Caracol Beach": Eliseo Alberto's International Literary Accomplishment

Caracol Beach by Eliseo Alberto, Translated by Edith Grossman
Hardcover, 286 pages
Published by: Alfred A. Knopf
Price: $25
Publication Date: 2000



In the "conservative," "fashionable" resort community of Caracol Beach, Florida, a madman prepares to unleash his fury. Memories of combat and the loss of his cadre of infantrymen torture Beto Milanés, a former Cuban soldier in the Angola war of the `70s and `80s. He wants to put an end to his life, to stop the feelings of guilt which haunt him, but he's unable to bring himself to commit the act. On this strange, random, and important Saturday night Milanés sets out on the prowl, determined to find someone to kill him.

Winner of Spain's distinguished International Alfaguara Prize in Fiction Caracol Beach is a masterful blend of suspense, creativity, intrigue, woe, and magical realism. In his own words Cuban-born Eliseo Alberto describes his novel as a story about "fear, madness, innocence, forgiveness, and death." And he dedicates Caracol Beach to his "dear maestro, Gabriel Garcia Márquez—the writing world's most well known magical realist.

The novel's characters include aging police chief, Sam Ramos; his estranged transvestite son, Mandy; the overeager new police officer, Wellington Perales; the lonely wino gymnastics teacher, Agnes MacLarty; and the three unfortunate high school graduates whom Milanés drags into his night of mayhem: Laura, the cheerleader beauty queen; Martin, the inexperienced studious one; and Tom, the jock.

All are feisty and believable, and Alberto is adept at getting you to feel a certain kind of tenderness for them. That their destinies meet on this one dreadful night is a disturbing acknowledgment of life's chaos and unpredictability.

Even the "madman" Milanés—whose sorrowful history we learn by reading snippets from his "Soldier's Notebook"—cannot be entirely hated. Milanés wanted to be a pitcher on a Havana baseball team, until he broke his elbow. "Damn, I could have been a great pitcher," he says. But now, "I'm crazy."

If memories of war destroy one's soul, if fighting "with suicidal valor under unfavorable circumstances" eliminates peace of mind, can one be blamed for wanting an escape? For Milanés the uncertainty of the memories that he cannot rectify causes the worst turmoil:

"At the beginning of his exile at Caracol Beach, his past ... would appear withou warning: a torrential downpour at dawn ... or the sudden smell of pencil wood, was enoug to ruin the day with the echoes of many questions that had no satisfactory answers because they depended on the possibility of a return that was absolutely forbidden him. The nights turned kaleidoscopic and the soldier grew dizzy on the carousel of remembrance. Memory left him adrift."

When Laura, Tom, and Martin meet up with Milanés, the teen-aged trio are on a typical errand to buy more beer for their spur-of-the-moment high school graduation party at Martin's parents' resort home in Caracol Beach. Martin had assured everyone that the house had "enough beer to make all the firemen in St. Petersburg drunk." He was wrong.

Alberto's simple statement that follows Martin's boast—"He wouldn't live long enough to regret that sentence"—embodies the deeply moving and philosophical moments of Caracol Beach when we are reminded of how fleeting our innocence is.

Milanés ambushes the group, gives the orders for his suicide-by-proxy to the boys, and kidnaps Laura. The boys go off to get weapons; they arrive at the auto salvage yard where the soldier makes his home, prepared to do the deed. The absurdity of chance plays itself out again, and tragedy prevails.

Alberto's writing is crisp, distinctive, evocative, and filled with wisdom.
Alberto can wax poetic, as in: ". . . the only way to confront with relative success a life
besieged . . . . is to invent for ourselves a love at any price, do you see? Some kind of
solidarity . . . an alliance . . . . And all you can do is defend that love, kicking and scratching, even if it turns out to be an illusion bigger than the moon."

And he sets scene and character simply and vividly: "Sam shaved his head . . . . On that Saturday in June he gashed the back of his ear. A warm trickle of blood rolled down his neck and spread over his right nipple. His hand wasn't what it used to be. Neither was his patience. One of these mornings he'd end up slitting his throat."

Caracol Beach gives us a world where the triumphs and perils of being human are tested in one night of terror. It's a place where love exits and hatred looms; where forgiveness is granted and guilt persists; where death comes and life follows; where acceptance goes forth and fear overruns; where darkness falls and dawn arrives.

Caracol Beach is a modern-day, dreamlike, sometimes outrageous tale, and Alberto has achieved a significant international literary accomplishment.

This book review was originally published in MotherTown in 2000.