Recently published August 25, 2009 by Doubleday (a divison of RandomHouse)
This amazing novel is virtually impossible to talk about without giving away some of its magic, so I’ll let the publisher’s description stand:
A man arrives at an insane asylum in contemporary Spain claiming to be the legendary navigator Christopher Columbus. Who he really is, and the events that led him to break with reality, lie at the center of this captivating, romantic, and stunningly written novel.
Found in the treacherous Strait of Gibraltar, the mysterious man who calls himself Columbus appears to be just another delirious mental patient, until he begins to tell the “true” story of how he famously obtained three ships from Spanish royalty.
It’s Nurse Consuela who listens to these fantastical tales of adventure and romance, and tries desperately to make sense of why this seemingly intelligent man has been locked up, and why no one has come to visit. As splintered fragments of the man beneath the façade reveal a charming yet guarded individual, Nurse Consuela can’t avoid the inappropriate longings she begins to feel. Something terrible caused his break with reality and she can only listen and wait as Columbus spins his tale to the very end.
Thomas Trofimuk’s Waiting for Columbus chronicles the mysterious man’s time at the Sevilla Institute for the Mentally Ill and the relationship he forms with Nurse Consuela as he gradually unfolds the story of his—Columbus’s—life and the great disaster that ruined his voyage. He tells these stories with raw emotion, striking description, and palpable sensuality. And they are chock full of anachronistic details—ringing telephones, honking cars, rich old Jewish people funding his trip in exchange for a cruise to the Canary Islands—that creep in just as we begin to wonder whether he might really be who he says he is.
Waiting for Columbus is one phenomenal mindf#@k of a novel. Trofimuk gives nothing away until he absolutely must, and the journey is mesmerizing. Columbus’s stories pull us in and take us for the kind of ride that leaves you with that fuzzy-headed feeling where you don’t really know which way is up. The first 80% of this book is intentionally puzzling and ambiguous in a can’t-put-it-down-must-know-how-it-ends sort of way, and that is a very, very good thing.
Trofimuk seems to understand that readers can only handle so much wondering, that even in this tale that jumps from the late 1400s into the present day, there must be some kind of resolution, and he gives it to us in an incredibly satisfying way. While readers who prefer a linear beginning-middle-end fashion of storytelling might struggle to appreciate or enjoy the organization of this novel, they will not be left hanging. Trofimuk answers the central questions and makes the journey SO WORTH IT. And this is certainly one of those books that is about the journey.
Waiting for Columbus is a dazzling, devastating,one of a kind book that I found impossible to put down. I talked about it non-stop as I was reading it, and I don’t intend to stop any time soon. This is a read that will keep you breathless and leave you gasping for more. 5 out of 5.
Thanks very much to Ann Kingman for introducing me to this unforgettable book and RandomHouse for providing a copy for review.
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