Ben Winch's Reviews > The Violent Land

Pretty good. A bit too obvious, a bit unsubtle, but gripping, and musical in the bargain. Granted I'm in a strange place with my reading lately - attention diverted by cacophonous stepkids on the one hand and imperative to write my own stuff in my few solitary hours on the other - but a book like this, solid with soft heart and hint of fire, which hasn't let me down once since I started relying on it, is welcome sustenance for now, experimental/iconoclastic or otherwise. For years I scanned past Amado's better-known (in English) works on my father's shelves when he was feeding me Marquez and Grass and Rushdie, and chances are I won't be reading Gabriella, Clove and Cinnamon in a hurry, but this first novel justifies his popularity. I just noticed Penguin reissued it this year.