An explorer s whereabouts keeps a queen in waiting; a faith healer s illegal radio broadcasts give hope to an oppressed people; a president s offer of ice cream surprises a prostitute expecting to cooperate fully the three short fictions gathered in The Great Exception build into a vision of Cuba that is black-humored, brutal, and beautiful. Written prior to the publication of Rachel Kushner s first acclaimed novel Telex From Cuba, these stories, like Roberto Bolano s Antwerp, burst forth with the genesis of her fictional universe as though fired from a cannon. From the mythical title story, to the ominous Debouchment originally published in her too short-lived journal Soft Targets to the sexy and noirish Strange Case of Rachel K, this is Kushner saddling up for a journey into the wilds of the modern novel."
