Sudden Death (2016) by Enrique Alvaro

 Book Review

Sudden Death (2016)

by Enrique Alvaro

   I convinced my book group to read Enrique Alvaro's last novel, You Dreamed of Empires, translated from the Spanish, a fantasia of a book, re-imagining the counter between Cortes and the Aztec empire in a way that evoked Roberto Bolano and Quentin Tarantino at the very same time. The rest of my book group didn't care for it, but I thought it was amazing.  It spurred me to buy Sudden Death, his 2016 which is built around a 16th century tennis match between the painter Caravaggio and a Spanish poet, which I read on my recent vacation to the East Coast.   There was a surprising level of continuity between this book and You Dreamed of Empires, even though the two books mostly take place thousands of miles apart (scenes from Sudden Death do indeed take place in post-conquistador New Spain).

  What's funny about reading this book in the context of my book club is how far a book like this one- which I really loved, is from the taste of the average reader of literary fiction-like forget about the general reader- people who read romance novels and Jonathan Kellerman books- I'm talking about the audience of people who consider themselves "serious readers"- even that group is not going to read this book, simply based on the description.  And yet,  both books arrive courtesy of Penguin Random House and this book arrived in paperback with pages and pages of positive reviews from English reviewers.  Clearly, the critical/editorial community at the highest levels of American publishing agree with me.  But none of this can make normal people read and like Enrique Alvaro.  It just isn't going to happen.