MONA PASSAGE, where humanity, lovingkindness, and geopolitical reality collide

MONA PASSAGE
THOMAS BARDENWERPER
Syracuse University Press
$29.95 hardcover, available now

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Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Mona Passage is the story of two neighbors in San Juan, Puerto Rico: Galán Betances, a Cuban emigrant, and Pat McAllister, a young Coast Guard officer. During long evenings spent together talking on their Calle Luna rooftop, a deep friendship develops based on shared traumas and a common desire to heal. When Galán learns that his sister, Gabriela, is going to be committed to a mental health facility in Cuba, he plans her escape to Puerto Rico. Pat, whose Coast Guard cutter patrols the Mona Passage for drug traffickers and migrants, warns Galán that such a journey will be treacherous--perhaps fatal. Aware of the dangers but determined for Gabriela to live a full life, Galán hands over all the money he has to a Dominican smuggler based out of a San Juan nightclub, and Gabriela begins her terrifying journey.

Knowing that his cutter may be all that separates Galán and Gabriela—and haunted by the human suffering he has witnessed at sea—Pat must decide. Will he remain true to his oath, as his older brother had done in Iraq? Or will he risk his own future—and perhaps his freedom—for his closest friend?

On a moonless night, two armed vessels converge in the Mona Passage, and three lives change forever.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: The stakes in this story could not possibly be higher. Two men, friends who have that certain connection that feels more like family, are set onto a collision course by the Large External Force that is Law.

You don't get more universal than that.

What makes this read stand out is the way it happens...the way Author Bardenwerper created it. He was Pat, he knows Pat's job...he knows what it means to be bound by Law to go against convictions you simply can't ignore. And, as is ever and always the case, no good deed goes unpunished.

Multiple times and in innumerable ways. There can only be so much good luck in the world, it seems, and some people burn through their tiny bit in no time at all. This story is about many of those people; this read is for those myriads of us who know, love, are those people. The decisions of people we'll never meet cost us precious resources, time or money or access. And we'll often never know how those souls are responsible for the landscape we are required to walk. And I think, as lessons I've been forced to learn myownself go, this one's the best one to revisit. As I read Pat's story, I felt so clearly the pitfalls, the disasters to come. The secret of the read is that I kept reading, kept my eyeballs on the page, as it unfolded. I cared about Galán, and Gabriela. I wanted them to be reunited, despite the many, many burdens that meant Galán would be shouldering. And Gabriela, well, we need our families, we need our people near us more when it's hardest for them to be there.

The main story here, though, is about the Wrongness of the World. It's so simple on a personal level...so very complicated as soon as higher authority gets hold of the narrative. It shows that Author Bardenwerper knows Pat's job...it shows that he's got the keys to a roman à clef in this novel. But most of all, it shows that he really, truly wrote from his heart, gave his full and complete self to creating this novel. It was a surprise to me to care this much about his characters. They weren't particularly well drawn, though that is not for want of trying. Whatever craft lacunae there are, are not there because the author is not working hard to fill them. It takes time and luck to fill out the weak spots in one's writing, and the world gives little of either to anyone.

Happily, Syracuse University Press has given Author Bardenwerper a leg up through their Veterans Writing Award, a program instituted to bring us the often-impossible-to-locate words of the actual people who do the hard, thankless work that being in the military requires. It is not a group of people we can afford to ignore. Our various military branches have many jobs, and some leave more traces behind than others. We're better able to learn about their world, and the world we all live in, now that this series exists.

This particular novel, Mona Passage, is a good way to enter that world and be present, be attentive, as its costs become prices paid by real people.