EMERALD ROAD

A young gay man and his faithful dog weather harrowing violence in El Salvador and a long trek to America in Ortega-Medina’s hallucinatory novel.

Isaac Perez, a teenager living San Salvador in 1978, dreams of becoming an astronaut. Isaac starts an affair with Gerónimo, a handsome, politically engaged altar boy, but his deepest bond is with Ahbhu, an injured Australian Cattle Dog pup that he nurses back to health. The promiscuous Gerónimo never fully requites Isaac’s love, but Ahbhu is supremely faithful to him; indeed, their communion is so intense that Ahbhu is able to hold telepathic conversations with Isaac. This comes in handy as El Salvador’s civil war, pitting left-wing guerillas against the army and right-wing death squads, escalates in the 1980s. When a bus carrying Isaac and a group of left-wing activists is stopped by soldiers, Ahbhu guides him to safety­ as a massacre begins in which Isaac’s brother Arturo is killed. Framed for the murder of a soldier, Isaac flees north toward the United States, assisted by Suchi, a no-nonsense lesbian who belongs to an underground railroad for migrating gay people. In Mexico City, Isaac meets dreamboat Diego and his father, Don Federico, an indigenous seer who can also converse with Ahbhu. This magical-realist yarn suffers from weak main characters: Ahbhu is heroic but one-dimensional, and Isaac comes off as passive; he’s dependent on everyone and his dog to steer him. Fortunately, the supporting characters are vibrant and sharply etched—the hard-bitten Suchi flintily surmounts all challenges but is helpless prey to a leggy con woman—and Ortega-Medina’s prose is evocative and punchy (“Before we had even a chance to react, Cano dragged the driver off the bus, shoved him onto the ground, and put a bullet in his head, the sound of the single gunshot ricocheting off the hills”). The fantasy elements are a bit goofy, but the storytelling is vigorous and gripping.

An uneven but entertaining story of war and exile, its shaggy-dog whimsy redeemed by strong writing.