Mooch, the Meek

Original Science Fiction in the truest sense, Mooch is a provocative novel about exploitation that draws on the magical promise of DNA science when it is combined with the mystical practices of Yoruba-based Ifà. The story: thanks to his Trinidadian mother’s grumpy orisha, Monte Cristo Redibo is born with a awkward gift—he can know a person’s feelings through their touch, but being tongue-tied, he’s unable to describe it. After a happy infancy in the City with his parents, Monte’s life is taken over by the Authorities and he is put in a Home. Small in stature and timid, he is a natural target for bullies and suffers their spite until he escapes that hellhole with the help of a drifter, a shady Native American man. As this man’s companion Monte learns and lives the vagrant’s way. Inevitably, the ‘Authorities’ recapture him, and thereafter he has to depend on ingenuity, persistence, and a modest talent to achieve his notion of freedom and significance. Among those he encounters on this quest are an opportunistic nurse, a forthright steelband leader, a charming criminal kingpin, a most peculiar and powerful feral youngster, and a teenaged Latina who’s into sex and gene splicing rap. Each one is out to get something from a so vulnerable Monte, and one way or the other, they do. Still, Monte learns that although the ox is slow, the land is patient. Read this entertaining, swift-moving tale and find out how he does.

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