The ill-fated peregrinations of Fray Servando
Kisses only. Any sex is implied and fully off page.
Euphemistic. Softened or poetic language, little direct anatomy.
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Blurb
In the brilliant tradition of Don Quixote and Candide, this passionate novel by the author of Before Night Falls is a modern masterpiece of Latin American fiction. Fray Servando—priest, blasphemer, dueler of monsters, irresistible lover, misunderstood prophet, prisoner, and consummate escape artist—wanders among the vice-ridden populations of eighteenth-century Europe and the Americas, fleeing dungeons, a marriage-minded woman, a slave ship captain, and the Inquisition. Whether by burro, by boat, or by the back of a whale, Fray Servando’s journey is at once funny and romantic, melancholy and profound—a tale rooted in history, yet outrageously hallucinatory. “An impenitent amalgam of truth and invention, historical fact and outrageous make-believe . . . a philosophical black comedy.”—The New York Times
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The Palace of the White Skunks
Hallucinations, being an account of the life and adventures of Friar Servando Teresa de Mier
The same picaresque friar, Inquisition escapes and hallucinatory history, in an alternate translation of the identical novel tighter and more documentary in tone.
A pocketful of silver
Also a period tale of buried secrets and hard-won survival, but domestic and warmly romantic rather than satirical and surreal.
A mansion by the Mersey
Shares historical class conflict and hidden parentage revelations, though the mood is gentler, romance-driven, and ends happily instead of picaresque and bleakly comic.
Of Triton
Keeps the outsider-hunted-by-law premise and sea-voyage fantasy, but as YA fated-mates romance: lighter, faster, no Inquisition dungeons.
Mollie on the Shore
Another story of an outcast defying rigid social hierarchies, yet grounded in quiet coastal realism rather than whale-riding hallucination.