The Spectacle of Let: The Oliet & Obit. By Samuel Zamarripa. ISBN:978-1546370796. $24.95.
Open Samuel Zamarripa’s
debut novel, The Spectacle of Let – the Oliet and Obit, and embark on a
literary journey through the imaginative work of his protagonist, Otto Cristóbal Almeida, and
his mysterious manuscript, The Voice of the Looking Mountains, a book
within a book.
Almeida has a fantastic story to tell about Creation and the
first spoken word of God. It is a tale spun from the boundless stories of his
numinous paramour, Niva Miramontes, who speaks with uncommon conviction. “In
the beginning,” she insists, “God said ‘Let,’ and the rest is just a
spectacle.”
From a mysterious monastery in Veracruz, Mexico,
to an overnight cruise on the majestic Hudson River, Miramontes reveals her
heavenly gift of parable. Weaving
together the generational saga of the Portuondo family—their salacious past and
their journey to redemption—Niva’s tales captivate Otto.
Overwhelmed by Niva’s spellbinding words,
Otto falls into the clutches of an Oliet—a dream’s dream, a place where
fiction invades life, yielding truth of a different kind. His book
languishes and finally lands on the desk of his brooding editor, L. Rand
Bonarias, who plunges into the unfinished manuscript and discovers that while
Otto’s love story may be a literary gimmick, his unbelievable account of
the story of Creation and Niva Miramontes is more than artful
prose.
A gospel of fantastic spirituality and abiding
love, The Spectacle of Let – the Oliet and Obit, reimagines the marvel
of Creation and the unbound possibilities of a single word.
