Spanish Blood

Kelly Daniels, in his new novel A Candle for San Simón, juxtaposes his interpretation of the enigmatic, oft tangled, and misrepresented Guatemalan gang culture with that of the darkly comedic American mega-church. The traditions of white American evangelism — under scrutiny especially in recent years — comes face to face with the realities of Guatemalan poverty and violence (imagined or not by the white burden).

Daniels explores the precise moment cultures clash, the moment when Americans imagine themselves above, yet nevertheless entrenched in, gang violence. He especially delves into white confrontation of the ethnic divide between ladina/mestiza women and Mayan indigenous peoples. The novel is a constant buzz of connecting — and often confusing — social divides that are not, contrary to popular American wish, too far from our own home front reality.

Characters in A Candle for San Simón must navigate the road of not quite belonging. Take, for example, Caruthers, a white American expatriate who, after running out on his family, settled in Panajachel to become a drunkard bus driver. Both he and the natives of Panajachel yearn for the return of American tourist dollars after the collapse of the entire industry due to growing media coverage of violence. However, Caruthers must come to terms with the idea that gang violence does not only affect his life financially, but — as he soon learns — firsthand. His skin color does not grant him safety; thus, he must put aside his white blindness. Daniels writes, “Eventually the tourists would return. They always did. The familiar injustice of life in Guatemala would resume.”

Fast-paced and plot-driven, readers are taken through the mind and experiences of not only Caruthers, but his mission-trip son Max, gang member Vicki (recently deported from California), and Guatemalan teacher Karma. There is no lack of characters in Daniels’s novel, no desire for action left wanting. If anything, the novel could use a plot tone-down. However, the novel wouldn’t fully represent a broad character swatch if not for the constant plot progression. It is, after all, what brings all characters together, boiling their personalities and emotions until their eventual breaking point.

Most fascinating is Daniels’s darkly humorous ability to show the seedy underbelly and false holiness of the classic American mission trip as it stands in relation to gang culture. As Daniels switches perspectives between his characters, readers are able to get deep into the mind of Max, Caruthers’s son, as he volunteers to build chimneys and preach to the village of Zunilito. Despite his outward benevolence, it takes Max nearly a week to arrive at his destination after questionable decisions and, despite his best intentions, a week of what’s traditionally seen as “sin.” Daniels writes, with a wink toward his readership,

The girl sat on her mother’s lap, snuggled into her belly and closed her eyes. She coughed, a grave-sounding rattle. The sling, bulging like a pea pod, held an infant Max hadn’t noticed before. He shrank away instinctively, afraid of catching whatever they had, a virulent despair.

Max’s intentions throughout the novel are less than holy, and readers come to learn that nothing in Daniels’s world is what it originally seems.

Daniels explores other themes that stem from his globetrotting background. Growing up, the author lived in a Hawaiian commune, in the desert, in vans. He has worked in Europe, Mexico, and Central America (including Guatemala). His familiarity with Guatemalan culture lends his work authority, and he utilizes his abilities to entertain to call into question the very ideas of ethnicity, post-colonialism, and the church’s role in colonizing. Daniels’s asides are delicately woven into the greater tapestry of his work, easily mistaken for the familiar crassness of his characters. But his words beg you to stop, re-read, and re-think what you have just read. They are words of power, of anger, but they are also of deep acknowledgement that must be, in...