Sudden Death

Transcending time, place, and traditional narrative style, Mexican author Álvaro Enrigue’s novel Sudden Death (2016) is a postmodernist exploration of ideas as they collide with empires, presented through a fictional tennis match between the Italian artist Caravaggio and the Spanish poet Francisco de Quevedo. Told through a series of scrapbook-like episodes, the story pays tribute to the human mind's capacity to think, to create, to reason, and to transcend reason—and, ultimately, to bend.

After an introduction offering a brief history of tennis, the novel opens in sixteenth-century Rome, where a tennis match is in progress. On one side of the net is Caravaggio, on the other, Quevedo. As they volley the ball back and forth, certain seemingly disparate events in world history weave in and out of the match in progress, interspersed with further historical accounts of the game of tennis.

Meanwhile, Caravaggio gains the upper hand in the game. Quevedo attends the match with a man later revealed to be the Spanish noble the Duke of Osuna; Caravaggio attends with renowned mathematician Galileo. Perspective shifts between the experiences of both players, as the story of how the match came to be slowly unfolds.



The previous night, Caravaggio and Quevedo had had far too much to drink while out carousing with a large group of mutual friends. At one point, both men had to go to the bathroom at precisely the same moment. They went outside to urinate and eventually took to the streets, walking around Rome together. Then, their camaraderie turned sexual. The two men kissed, and Quevedo reached under Caravaggio's cloak to grope him. As their encounter heated up, the Duke of Osuna caught them in the act.

Embarrassed, Quevedo quickly tried to conceal the indiscretion; he did not want to bear the shame and humiliation that would surely come with accusations of homosexuality. Therefore, Quevedo said that Caravaggio was attempting to rob him and that the Duke arrived just in time to stop it. To even the score, Quevedo suggested to Caravaggio that they engage in a duel. Caravaggio agreed, but this would be no traditional duel: they would fight it out with rackets and a ball on a tennis court the following day.

Also making its way through the narrative is the story of a single tennis ball, woven from the hair of the ill-fated English queen, Anne Boleyn, after her beheading. The Queen's executioner, Frenchman Jean Rombaud, refuses to accept money for his services. Instead, he wants the Queen's hair, which he makes into tennis balls. Back in France, Rombaud trades the balls for status in the royal court; his machinations eventually lead to his own execution. One of his tennis balls finds its way to Phillipe de Chabot, a French admiral and minister to the King. Recognizing the ball's importance, Chabot sends it to the Vatican in Rome, where several members of the papal court use it as a bargaining chip. However, this is by no means the end of the line for the ball. Through a long chain of coincidences, flukes, and sheer dumb luck, the ball ends up in Caravaggio's possession.



The exploits of Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés are also included. Malinalli, Cortés's translator—also his slave and lover—knowingly misinterprets his edicts in an attempt to gain some political power for herself. She explains that Cortés will destroy the Aztec Empire, leading to a long and bloody war in which Cortés defeats the Aztecs as Malinalli foretold. After the execution of the Aztec ruler Cuauhtémoc, Cortés cuts off Cuauhtémoc's hair and makes it into a cloak. Later, the Duke of Osuna receives the cloak, and he gives it to Quevedo to wear for luck during the tennis game.

After the fall of the Aztec Empire, Cortés orders the destruction of virtually all native records and cultural evidence. Then, Vasco de Quiroga, a Spanish priest, decides to build a utopian society on the site of the Aztec civilization. As his blueprint, Quiroga uses a book called Utopia by English philosopher, statesman, and eventual Catholic saint Thomas More. But Vasco does not realize that the social structure More devised in his book is virtually identical to the society of the Aztecs that once flourished beneath Vasco's very feet. As his new society takes shape, a local artisan and the soon-to-be first governor of Spanish colonial rule in Mexico, Diego de Alvarado Huanitzin, makes an elaborate headpiece for the Pope, decorated with feathers from birds native to the region. Huanitzin's talent inspires Caravaggio, Galileo, and Vasco when they see the headpiece for themselves, in different places and at different points in history.

Back at the match, Quevedo suffers an injury, but he insists he can continue. Caravaggio then wins the game.