Strange Love

 By Fred Waitzkin

Illustrated by Sofia Ruiz

Open Road     2021

133 pages     Novella

Where to begin with this strange, unusual, but wonderful novella? What else to expect from Fred Waitzkin!

First a description. The narrator is a middle-aged American tourist vacationing at a remote fishing village on the spectacular Pacific coast of Costa Rica. He becomes enamored with a beautiful Costa Rican woman named Rachel, who owns a small restaurant in the village. When he got acquainted with her, he lied and told her that he was a well-known author, not a washed-up writer from New York, working as a pest exterminator. During his visit, they meet daily, their romance deepening, and she tells him the story of her life, hoping that he will turn it into a novel.

The narrator returned to New York to work his exterminator job and visit with a friend, but he returned to Rachel and the coastline. Early in the relationship, he had mused: “My words were running past me, promises to a stranger beside me. Did I actually love this unusual woman that I hardly knew? Was it the magic of the place or the despair of a last chance slipping away, or just the nonsense of an old man trying to outrun his considerable failures?” But after his return to Costa Rica, he realizes that he loves this woman and wants to spend his life with her. He knows for sure that her story will become his next novel.

Interspersed with the spare writing and the equally spare plot, Sofia Ruiz, the illustrator, has placed significant art, which adds greatly to our understanding of the novel. The sketches of Rachel are so incredibly beautiful, we understand the  narrator’s love and desire for Rachel. Will she return to New York with him? That question is never answered, but we end the novel hoping that their lives will be intertwined forever.

Strange Love is a book that I probably would not have purchased or taken off the library shelf.  Curiously, I was much more interested in the details of the narrator’s work as a pest exterminator than I was with his love affair. Additionally I wish that Waitzkin had fleshed out some of the characters better; a lot remained unsaid. For example, Rachel’s mother remained an enigma. I wanted to know more about her. Additionally, much more detail could have been added to the setting.

I read and reviewed Deep Water Blues, Waitzkin’s 2019 exploration of another Caribbean paradise. It is a book filled with tragedy. Strange Love is equally as intriguing as Deep Water Blues, and I did value reading both. They are books that can be read in one sitting, but they both leave the reader pondering their significance. 

Here is a You Tube interview with the author. Also his website.