Sebastian Shakespeare

Streetwalker

The Insatiable Spiderman

By

Faber & Faber 162pp £6.99 order from our bookshop

Diderot said that there is a little bit of testicle in the most sublime sentiments and refined tenderness. With Pedro Juan Gutierrez you get a lot of testicle and precious little tenderness. As for sublime sentiments, forget it. This is fiction with cojones. When the Dirty Havana Trilogy was published three years ago it was banned in Gutierrez’s native Cuba and earned him comparisons with Henry Miller. A picaresque novel, it charts the fortunes of Pedro Juan (the author’s alter ego), who narrates his adventures as he trawls the streets of Havana seeking sexual thrills. The Insatiable Spiderman marks the return of Gutierrez’s nihilistic anti-hero whose daily diet consists of rum, cigars and sweaty copulation.

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • 'Her favourite design included a body in the shape of a horse, with a steam engine inside ... The passenger would t… ,
    • Sign up to our email newsletter below! Get free articles, highlights from the archive, and chances to win theatre… ,
    • RT : Founded in 1979, is a trusted independent source for reviews of new books across a variety of genres. A… ,
    • RT : Here we are - "Shelf Indulgence" by Ed Potten, a wonderful read, well worth your time: @Lit_Review,
    • 'Like going to a party hoping to get away as quickly as politeness allowed and at 4am finding myself still engrosse… ,
    • 'Neville never shed his sense of being the junior, and perhaps least-deserving Chamberlain.' From the archive, Mic… ,
    • 'The erecting and immediate destruction of a series of straw men rather detracts from what is for the most part an… ,
    Follow Us