European colonization of South America immediately invokes images of conquistadors in metal helmets pillaging local villages and erasing centuries of history and culture. Because history is largely written by the oppressors, we often forget about the other European invasion of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: religion. Marina Closs's The Depopulation, her first novel to be published in English (Bellevue Literary Press; 320 pages; translated by Thomas Bunstead), transports us to the South American jungle, where Jesuit priests spread their own interpretation of God and work to erase much of the local customs and beliefs. At its heart, the novel explores themes of spiritual identity and faith, and the struggle between indigenous beliefs and imposed religion.

Closs excels at building wonderfully intricate characters. Ruiz, Maceta, and Overá each essentially act as triangular foils; Ruiz is an idealist, Maceta a pragmatist, and Overá a dreamer. Their differences play out in sharp, tangible ways. Ruiz never believes Overá's origin story and works to temper his impact with the Guaraní in plots that border on zany. Maceta is often left to mediate between the two to keep the locals' growing fascination with Overá from unraveling their conversion. In one example of their absurd interactions, Ruiz tells Overá to "imagine Jesus or the Virgin Mary on a hill." When Overá simply asks, "What's on the other side of this hill?" Ruiz is befuddled. The way the three play off each other gives levity to a serious subject matter. At the same time, it presents a struggle between belief, religious adaptation, and spiritual authority that fuels the novel's themes.

But deep characters alone don't get us to the level on which Closs is working here. As each layer is added, more is peeled away to show the true nature of these men. We learn what they want at the same time they do, never much given out ahead of time. And they play off each other in unexpected ways. Their desires and goals aren't static, and how they respond to the threat of the Mestiços can, at first, seem surprising, but reveals another facet of each. Simple, two-dimensional characters with straightforward goals and desires would have killed the interest in the book; here, Closs can offer rash and surprising decisions that are earned because of the way she builds real, breathing, thinking characters who often act in absurd ways. Nothing seems out of place, even when we feel surprised. By the end, we get a strong sense of each character's vulnerabilities, and how each represents actual responses to real threats.

We carry assumptions into the story of the Guaraní; the imminent threat of slave-trading conquistadors never ends well for the native population. But the novel works through a difficult topic with vibrant, lyrical prose seeped in humor. The writing is interspersed with journal entries in which Ruiz attempts to contextualize his experiences with the Guaraní, particularly regarding their customs and alternative religious ideas (and often in humorous ways), as well as song lyrics developed by the Guaraní. It gives the prose a fresh feel that doesn't get bogged down in serious preaching. Much of that is due to a heightened level of absurdity. Closs understands when to put heavier pressure on the ridiculous scenes involving Ruiz. Each time the Guaraní offer him a piece of their own religious views, or a custom such as singing and dancing to seek knowledge, Ruiz twists their beliefs to fit his idea of the Holy Spirit. And privately, Ruiz believes he has encounters with Jesus and Mary, often feeling them inside of him. Of these encounters, "They always ended with Ruiz in extraordinary pain," and later we learn "there had already been the prophecy about his martyrdom being something cruel and slow." The author also understands when to pull back and treat situations with a bit more compassion, particularly as Overá attempts to learn more about his own history and whether he actually believes himself to be the son of God.

Obviously, Religion plays a central role in the narrative tension, both before the arrival of the Mestiços and in the aftermath of the mission's escape into the jungle. It's clear early in the novel that Ruiz, and to a lesser extent Maceta, don't take the local culture and customs of the Guaraní seriously. The perception only heightens with Overá's blasphemous claims about his origin. Yet, the novel can keep those perceptions dialed in to the situations on the page without the text turning preachy or heavy-handed. We feel for the Guaraní subjected to Ruiz's fanaticism, but also have sympathy for the mercurial Father as well.

It takes some time to settle in, as the opening pages focus on exposition and world-building. Early scenes immerse the reader in the detailed atmosphere of the Guayrá region while establishing an absurd undercurrent to Ruiz and Maceta. The narrative momentum starts to pick up with the arrival of Overá, who spurs the priests into action and creates needed movement. But much of the novel’s first section exists as a series of scenes rather than defined plot. Though the story doesn’t necessarily "grab" us in the opening pages (the necessity of which is often tediously preached in fiction), it's worth hanging in to let things build, because that world-building pays off later, as layers are added to the Guaraní traditions and how Ruiz and Maceta respond to them, as well as adding context to Overá's personal evolution.

The Depopulation is filled with detailed, lyrical prose and offers a glimpse into a difficult but under-discussed aspect South American history. Simply using time and place as a foundation, it calls to mind luminaries such as Gabriel García Márquez and Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, weaving myth into the historical backdrop of colonization. Closs, though, centers her novel on spiritual conflict and cultural transformation. Her layered situations and characters, along with strong, humorous prose and her ability to add playfulness to tragedy, show Closs as a major talent worthy of her own attention.