The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa
Until recently - namely until the earthquake that hit Haiti and brought the Hispaniola Island back in the limelight - whenever I heard of the Dominican Republic, my mind went to Felix Sanchez, nicknamed "The Dictator", a likeable US-born man with Dominican origins, a 400m Hurdles Champion and the first athlete to win an Olympic Gold Medal for that country. Alas, from now on, this country will be forever in my mind connected with its true dictator, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina, whose authoritarian, autarchic and repulsive regime has lasted 31 years. Mario Vargas Llosa has put his last days into paper, telling the personal stories of the people around him - his collaborators as well as his assasins - in the process.
Amongst them we find Joaquin Balaguer, his puppet president, who during the days after the Chief's assasination gambled his whole life and won, survived the chaos by balancing the situation between Trujillo's brothers and the USA pressure, became an elected president of his country and died at the ripe old age of 96. We find the commander of the intelligence service, the dreadful Abbes Garcia, whose practises can make prominent Nazis seem like angels, and his totally deserved, tragic end. We read about Antonio Imbert Barrera, the driver of the main car that carried Trujillo's killers and only survivor - along with Luis Amiama Tio - of the group that put the plot into action, who after being hidden for 6 months by a couple of officers of the Italian Embassy and gaining 5 kilos eating pasta, found himself suddenly elected to hero status, his name being given to streets and plazas, together with those who suffered electrocution tortures, pissing and shitting themselves, naked for months in the prisons; together with a man that was brought meat to eat in prison after many months and died of a heart attack when a prison officer holding the decapitated head of the prisoner's son informed him that he had just shallowed the last piece of the missing headless body.
There is also a woman that returns to her country three decades later, the daughter of a prominent Trujillista. Her father had been stripped off of his powers, his bank accounts were frozen just months before the dictator was killed. Back then, still a 14-year old girl, she was offered as a present to the Chief - who liked to break a virgin's cherry once in a while - as a last attempt to regain his position in the regime. Trujillo, suffering from an enlarged prostate, couldn't have an erection and chose to "punish" the girl with his right hand. The girl hasn't left a man touch her ever since, her father lost his last chances and now is a breathing corpse. A couple of weeks later, Rafael Trujillo wants to erase that shameful night from his memories. He waits impatiently in his Chevrolet to reach the same place - a new girl waiting - and has decided that this time he must make her scream with pleasure. A car waits for him in the way. Tony Imbert is the driver!
Amongst them we find Joaquin Balaguer, his puppet president, who during the days after the Chief's assasination gambled his whole life and won, survived the chaos by balancing the situation between Trujillo's brothers and the USA pressure, became an elected president of his country and died at the ripe old age of 96. We find the commander of the intelligence service, the dreadful Abbes Garcia, whose practises can make prominent Nazis seem like angels, and his totally deserved, tragic end. We read about Antonio Imbert Barrera, the driver of the main car that carried Trujillo's killers and only survivor - along with Luis Amiama Tio - of the group that put the plot into action, who after being hidden for 6 months by a couple of officers of the Italian Embassy and gaining 5 kilos eating pasta, found himself suddenly elected to hero status, his name being given to streets and plazas, together with those who suffered electrocution tortures, pissing and shitting themselves, naked for months in the prisons; together with a man that was brought meat to eat in prison after many months and died of a heart attack when a prison officer holding the decapitated head of the prisoner's son informed him that he had just shallowed the last piece of the missing headless body.
There is also a woman that returns to her country three decades later, the daughter of a prominent Trujillista. Her father had been stripped off of his powers, his bank accounts were frozen just months before the dictator was killed. Back then, still a 14-year old girl, she was offered as a present to the Chief - who liked to break a virgin's cherry once in a while - as a last attempt to regain his position in the regime. Trujillo, suffering from an enlarged prostate, couldn't have an erection and chose to "punish" the girl with his right hand. The girl hasn't left a man touch her ever since, her father lost his last chances and now is a breathing corpse. A couple of weeks later, Rafael Trujillo wants to erase that shameful night from his memories. He waits impatiently in his Chevrolet to reach the same place - a new girl waiting - and has decided that this time he must make her scream with pleasure. A car waits for him in the way. Tony Imbert is the driver!
Reviewed at the social site for books and libraries http://www.librarything.com by trandism
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