The Divine Husband

Francisco Goldman's THE DIVINE HUSBAND is an epic novel set in an unnamed Central American republic in the late 19th century. The protagonist is Maria de las Nieves, a teenaged novice nun forced out of the convent when anti-clerical revolutionaries ban the religious orders. Her subsequent life as a young woman trying to scratch out an independent living as a translator is narrated in part through the point of view of the men who are fascinated with her--until she has a child out of wedlock and refuses to name the father. Like the previous reviewer, I was thoroughly enchanted with the first three quarters of the book. The writing is absolutely vivid and beautiful, wonderfully researched and full of quirky characters and dashes of magical realism, such a nuns who can bi-locate and be in two places at once. However, after much build up, we finally learn the story of Maria's secret love affair with the young "Mosquito King," and this is the least convincing part of the book. Everything that happens afterward seems clumsy and anti-climactic. The author seems to lose focus at the end of the book, spending more time describing the life of Jose Marti, exiled Cuban poet, than fully developing Maria's story. However, it still gets three and a half stars because the beginning and middle of the book are so strong. -Mary Sharratt, author of The Vanishing Point

Worth wait 30 years for this one! Well done "Paquito"! Well documented. Many new unanswered questions...