He walks in the direction of the bay, observing attentively—pretending to be distracted—the huddles forming on the corners, among the people standing in line, and on the seawall. To all appearances, the scratched record of everyday life continues intact, repeating itself as it does every day; but deep down, something is moving, falling apart, breaking up.
This neat, pocket-sized novel packs a real punch. With the rhythm of a lullaby and the entreating quality of a prayer, 33 Revolutions recounts the attempted escape of an ordinary man from Cuba, which he has come to view as a kind of island prison, drawing interesting comparisons with Soviet Russia throughout. The book covers a ton of territory in its few small pages while still preserving a powerful sense of enclosure and entrapment, stressing a repetitiveness that nonetheless is a kind of ticking time bomb—no easy narrative feat. I read this in a single sitting and liked it a lot.
