Daniel Jose Older

A 300 year-old story collector enlists the help of the computer hacker next door to save her dying sister. A half-resurrected cleanup man for Death s sprawling bureaucracy faces a phantom pachyderm, doll-collecting sorceresses and his own ghoulish bosses. Gordo, the old Cubano that watches over the graveyards and sleeping children of Brooklyn, stirs and lights another Malagueña. Down the midnight streets of New York, a whole invisible universe churns to life in Daniel José Older's debut collection of ghost noir.

Salsa Nocturna Stories

Didi Chanoch

** spoiler alert **
           There are spoilers here for Half-Dead Blues and Midnight Taxi Tango.

Reading Salsa Nocturna after reading Daniel Jose Older's three novels, all of which take place before it, all of which were written after it, is an odd experience. In the timeline of Older's Bone Street Rumba series, Salsa Nocturna fits between Midnight Taxi Tango and the upcoming Battle Hill Bolero. But it fits oddly, for several reasons. 

The biggest one is plot related. Multiple things, important things, that happen in the previous novels didn't happen to the protagonist Carlos in his personal history in Salsa Nocturna. Some pretty important characters in his half-life just aren't there. This is because Older only came up with those things and characters while writing the novels, and chose his story over continuity. I think it was the correct choice, as I can't imagine the series without, for instance, Sasha. But I kept imagining her while reading the stories, standing near Carlos and going "Really? You're the only one of your kind, motherfucker? I know you don't remember your life, but how do you not remember some of the most important events of your half-death?" 

Apart from that, there's the fact that Older simply got better. Had I read these stories before HDB and MTT, I would have been more impressed. And there's visible growth withing the book, I think. But there are specific areas, such as the way Older writes women, where one can a marked improvement even between the two novels (or, more accurately, between Half-Dead Blues and Shadowshaper, Older's brilliant YA novel that was published after HDB and before MTT). 

I debated if this was a 3 or 4 stars book for me. I don't think it's as good as the novels, which I graded 4 stars for the adult novels and 5 for Shadowshaper. But I *did* really like it. And that's what 4 stars means. Older already has the cadence and musicality that liven and energize his writing, and these stories are as sharply political as any of the novels. 

I will be very interested in seeing how Older ties the earlier (in writing chronology) elements from these stories with the earlier (in story chronology) elements from the novels in the upcoming Battle Hill Bolero (which is an entire year away, sadly).

Salsa Nocturna Stories

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