Eclipse Fever

When many events happen at the same time, it takes the human mind a while to sort out the meaning behind them. Such is life and it also goes for Eclipse Fever by Walter Abish. It has a big cast of characters whose lives all intersect at one moment or another. Sometimes I felt lost but the story just kept on dragging me along with it, even when I got confused. It reminded me of life. Chaotic, messy, and beautiful.Most of the novel is set in 1990's Mexico among the disparate lives of the Mexican elite. We have Alejandro, a literary critic who just happens to be lined up to interview the famous American writer named Jurud, who just happens to be his wife's lover. To tell you how Alejandro gets along with his wife, the first chapter of the novel is called "At One Glance We Can Determine the Years They Will Not Spend Together!" His wife, Mercedes, has gone to America, supposedly to help translate Jurud's newest novel into Spanish but Alejandro knows something more is going on. Jurud's daughter, Bonny, doesn't sit too well with the new living arrangement when Mercedes moves between her and her father. So she decides to run away to Mexico to see a solar eclipse. Preston, an American businessman is designing an elevator in one of the ancient Aztec pyramids as his wife, Rita becomes a nymphomaniac. All these soap opera characters become involved in illegal dealings in Native Indian art which will lead to murder. The good thing about the book was its spot on characters. They were strongly written, even though Abish's style was not exactly reader friendly. You really got a sense of the Mexican people in the book. It didn't sound like an American writing about Mexico. It's hard to give a good plot summary of any book like this that is more about relationships between characters. This book has it all, love, supense, horror, crime, honor, strength, weakness. Almost anthropological in its richness.