Season of the swamp A novel

In this mesmerizing picaresque, Herrera (Ten Planets) speculates about the 18 months future Mexican president Benito Juárez spent in New Orleans during his exile following a dispute with then-president Santa Anna. Upon his arrival in the U.S. in December 1855, Benito and his small band of revolutionaries witness the arrest and beating of a young Black man. Troubled and disoriented, they're then preyed upon by a family of con artists. Soon, they befriend an amoral printer named Cabañas, who rationalizes his fugitive slave posters ("It's not like anyone's capturing them in order to take away their freedom. They never had it to begin with"), prompting Benito to debate him. Cabañas then introduces Benito to coffee shop proprietor Thisbee, a Black woman whom Benito finds enchanting, and Benito eventually learns she's helping people escape from slavery. Inspired by Thisbee's resistance, Benito encourages his compatriots to develop a lofty vision for their country's future, which Herrera never explicates. Instead, he focuses on the ways in which Benito is shaped by his stay. As glorious and messy as the best New Orleans gumbo, the novel comes together as Herrera vividly depicts the chaos of Mardi Gras, during which Benito is frightened and charmed in equal measure; the unsavory characters with whom he forms uneasy alliances; and his phantasmagorical dreams while fighting a bout of yellow fever. It's a triumph. (Oct.)

Herrera (Ten Planets) has proven to be a writer of demonstrated economy, his works rarely eclipsing 120 pages. In fact, his pattern of concision is such that he might more aptly be described as a novella-ist. His latest effort runs a comparatively robust 160 pages, a logical elongation given the book's subject matter: the 18 months that Benito Juárez spent exiled in New Orleans in the early 1850s, prior to becoming president of Mexico. Hererra spins a speculative history out of this mostly unknown period in Juárez's life, populating pages with fellow exiles and revolutionary plotters, the novel's compactness leaving the pages saturated in an indelible expression of mid-19th-century New Orleans: sticky and conniving, perilous and plagued by yellow fever. The effect plays something like a particularly grimy picaresque blended with city symphony--a portrait of a city haunting itself. Unfortunately, the marriage of Herrera's brevity and the almost mythic implications of both of the book's subjects--place and person--produces a story that feels freighted with significance but asks readers to fill in such blanks in the absence of any richer development. VERDICT Herrera's prodigious skill with language is on display, but his brevity feels mismatched to the novella's material, leaving any grander ideas more implied than satisfyingly explored.--Luke Gorham

One of Mexico's greatest political leaders enters his wilderness years in the rough streets of New Orleans just before the U.S. Civil War. In an abbreviated but essential preface, Herrera explains how future president of Mexico Benito Juárez came to live in New Orleans for two years beginning in 1853. Having already served as governor of his home state of Oaxaca but long before he will hold off an invasion by France, he's been sent into exile by political rival General Santa Anna, along with his brother-in-law Pepe Maza. No one living knows what happened to Juárez in the Big Easy, so Herrera's suppositions are well grounded between history and creative license. Asked by a new friend what brings him to town, Juárez replies drily, "A slight diversion, a delta, you might say." Even though Juárez is intimately familiar with Mexico's brand of corruption, he's unprepared to be beaten and robbed by the police upon arrival. He's even less prepared for the realities of an American slave trade at its height. "These people farm people, they breed humans captured at birth," Herrera writes. "These people fatten up their children, their own children, and then sell them." The narrative is populated with real historical figures like fellow reformers Melchor Ocampo and Ponciano Arriaga, with one memorable scene featuring a concert on 10 pianos by American composer Louis Gottschalk. In fact, there's a surprising richness to the milieu of a story mostly about meetings and letter writing. The New Orleans depicted here is carnivalesque, and the surreal spectacle of bear fights, spontaneous parades, and clandestine meetings, added to Benito's colorful dreams about liberation and justice, give the story a vibrant, almost hallucinatory feel. Meanwhile, Herrera's portrait of a leader in exile--rolling cigars, printing pamphlets, and plotting a revolution from the sidelines--depicts the frustrating dichotomy Juárez experiences between his lowly circumstances and his dreams of a better nation. A thoughtful portrait of one revolutionary's remarkable resilience, far from home. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.