In this, the final volume in the series of five novels that constitute his "secret history of Cuba",
Reinaldo Arenas
paints a harrowing, and at times boldly entertaining, Kafka-esque picture of a dehumanized people living in a world where homosexuality is a crime punishable by death and a cockroach hunt makes for a national holiday. Narrated by a hate-filled government torturer who has become an agent for the "Bureau of Counterwhispering","
The Assault
follows his travels through a blackly humorous shadowland as he winnow out whisperers, sexual deviants, and dissidents of every sort—until memory has been banished and spoken language has been nearly forgotten.