The Soviet Circus and Other Stories — Virgil Suarez

Fiction. Latino/Latina Studies. Virgil Suarez's latest short story collection, his first in more than two decades, is subversive and emotionally piercing. A man whose yard is plagued by armadillos, a pair of boys who torment scorpions with gasoline fires, and a father's best friend wasting away with an illness as a son watches the deterioration with fascination and disgust. These are just a few of the characters from seventeen stories that reveal a dark, satiric view of the human condition that's somehow ferocious and, at times, funny. Shades of Denis Johnson and George Saunders run throughout this potent volume of new stories. Whether he's writing about Havana, Miami, or other less exotic locales, Suarez has the ironic distance of an outsider while capturing the details only insiders know. THE SOVIET CIRCUS COMES TO HAVANA AND OTHER STORIES is an apt addition to the world of short fiction.

"In THE SOVIET CIRCUS COMES TO HAVANA, Virgil Suarez paints a vivid picture of the beauty and terror of revolutionary Cuba and exile from that 'solitary island floating away into a blue expanse.' These elegantly crafted coming-of-age stories richly illustrate that the first losses of life are among the hardest to bear." Rita Ciresi

"This wonder-filled collection of stories shows Virgil Suarez joining the ranks of multi-talented writers like Oates and Updike who can produce top work in novels, poems, and short fiction. THE SOVIET CIRCUS stories continually surprise, whether they stem from his boyhood in Cuba or roll knowingly through America, from the West coast to Florida, filled with the tragedies and comedies of unforgettable characters." Peter Meinke"