Fred Waitzkin. Strange Love. Open Road, 2021.

We reviewed a Fred Waitzkin novel about two years ago. This novella is different. There is no violence to speak of. The conflict is mostly internal except for a couple of fishing adventures. Still, it it engaging and affecting.

Waitzkin keeps one narrative technique the same: It is told in the first person. Unlike Deep Water Blues, the narrator never identifies himself, though he does mention having spent some time in the Bahamas. The names of people from the Bahamas are different, though.

In many countries there is some kind of folklore or tradition about the town or city where the most beautiful women in their country come from. In China I was told more than once that the prettiest Chinese women came from Suzhou (a.k.a. Soochow). Though I cannot remember the specifics, I have heard the same about a certain place in France and another in Brazil. Here we are told that the most beautiful women in Costa Rica come from the coastal village Fragata, population c. 300.

While a bit off the beaten track, tourists do come there and provide much of the poor town’s livelihood along with fishing. There is a pattern that rich European playboys spend time there and end up returning to Europe with one of the local women as a wife. More often than not, the women return after a decade or so.

When our narrator visits Fragata for a getaway, an attractive woman of certain age named María José begins to flirt with him. But he is immediately smitten with Rachel, her niece. Rachel is a single mother in her late thirties who has somehow missed matrimony.

Our narrator is himself around sixty, and understands that his attraction may be more of a fantasy. So perhaps were other aspects of his life. Back when he was in his twenties, he had written a very successful first novel. He dined with George Plimpton and Gay Talese one night. His Random House editor had worked with Philip Roth, Ralph Ellison, and Truman Capote.

His second novel was barely reviewed—and it was not published by Random House. He plugged away for a while. He describes it in a way that spoke to this reviewer who is sitting on half a dozen book manuscripts:

For as long as I could remember, I was going to be a writer. Until I wasn’t anymore. (19).

The last book reviewed here spoke of men making a conquest with a woman. Here, Rachel is the one who has conquered our narrator. He treats her with respect. He gradually hears her story and, generally, the story of her village. It is largely a melancholy tale of people trying to make ends meet and making sense of life.

An American friend who has worked years in Central America once told me that the only pleasure the people there live for is sex. There is a sense of that in this story. Few people seem to marry, but there is sexual experimenting. But not for Rachel or our narrator. Our narrator respects her too much. As their relationship develops, she becomes tender towards him, but she draws the line. Our narrator does not mind. He is learning that love is patient.

Most of the drama comes from Rachel’s story of her family. Her mother would periodically take what money she had and fly to Nicaragua to consult a fortune teller. The fortune teller’s advice never works, but her mother continues to trust her. Back when local newspapers in my state were a vital business, we would occasionally read about how someone had been duped for thousands by a fortune teller. It is still happening. It seems Rachel’s mother never learns.

Rachel had a sister Sondra who was about six or seven years younger. Sondra was physically quite attractive. Once when Rachel was twenty-two and getting serious about an Italian visitor, Sondra seduced him. When it appears that Rachel and our narrator are becoming friendly, Sondra will try to seduce him, too. I was reminded of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” and Judy Jones from Fitzgerald’s “Winter Dreams.”

Why the title Strange Love? Part of it simply because the protagonists come from two different countries. Our narrator is almost immediately smitten but comes to love and respect Rachel more as he hears her story. She is younger than he is, but still very much an adult.

The strange love is reflected in Rachel’s family relationships. Sondra has a baby boy that she does not really want. She leaves town and Rachel takes care of him for five years. He treats Rachel as a mother until Sondra suddenly returns and take him back. Rachel runs the family cantina on a shoestring, but her mother and Sondra take most of the earnings even though they do not work there. They accuse her of keeping back money even though it is obvious that she is not.

Still, Rachel is loyal to them. She seems to bear no ill will towards Sondra; that is just the way her sister is. She goes along with what her mother tells her that the fortune teller told her to do even if they cannot afford it. Yes, that is unconditional love, too, but maybe a bit strange.

While the story is intense, we get a sense of the laid-back timelessness of this beach village. The story, though, does have a little comic relief when our narrator returns to New York City for a month. He is not writing, but he picks up his old job as an exterminator.

He shares some wild stories about his month there hunting bugs and trapping rodents. We learn that most exterminating companies are always looking for help. When his writing was not going anywhere, he started working for them, and he knew if he returned to the city, they would take him back. We meet Robert, a one of a kind exterminator who loves the job and is also a Methodist preacher with three doctorates.

Of course, our narrator cannot stay away from Fragata. The question is whether his strange love will turn into something else. The story is a bit raw and not for everyone, but it does give a sense of what life in rural Latin America may be like, and how even the more urbane people can be drawn to it. If there is a criticism of the tale, one could argue that it is an old man’s fantasy.

Waitzkin has a great sense of place. Fragata is Spanish for frigate. So Waitzkin sails away. Even though Strange Love is a different story from Waitzkin’s Deep Water Blues, there is a character that appears as a constant: the tropical sea and shore. That comes alive. The setting may draw the reader in as much as the characters do.