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Llosa's "The Feast of Goat" is, perhaps, the most unsettling, disturbing account of historical fiction (as he has taken some liberties with certain events and people) regarding the darkest period of my ancestral country's 500 plus years existence (in the New World sense): the 30 plus year rule of tight-fisted dictator, Generalissimo Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina. The novel centers on Urania Cabral (I couldnt help but laugh at that name, as we Dominicans have a propensity to adorn our children with 'unique' names), a Dominicana in America who returns to the island after a 35 year self-imposed exile to confront the demons of the past, and the father whom she hated - the former Senator Augustin "Egghead" Cabral, a man who worked closely in and with the Trujillo machine. The novel veers back and forth between time periods with the greatest of ease: Urania's trepid journey back on the island, dealing with the mixed emotions and confronting her father, to the events during Trujillo's despotic reign of terror who sent dissenters and enemies of the state to the dreaded and feared places of La Cuerenta, La Victoria or El Nueve (or fed to the sharks off the coast), and the sadistic thugs who did his bidding, until the inevitable demise of Trujillo and his regime. From the historical aspect of the novel, there was quite wealth of truth that was woven into the story: Santo Domingo being renamed "Ciudad Trujillo" during his reign; His son Ramfis (who wasn't his biological son), who he tried to groom to be his successor, only to be his greatest disappointment as he was nothing more than a 'bon vivant'; his hatred of the Haitian blood that flowed in his veins; Balaguer being the President of the Republic (in name only and in actuality after the Goat's death), Trujillo's demise on that dark highway planned by a small resistance, and the list goes on. Trujillo has always held something of an enigmatic, if not morbid fascination for me, and he remains very much a taboo subject amongst Dominicans (at least with the older generation who lived during that era). I will say that this book shook me to the core of my being, in that one man with so much power who could incite so much fear into a country and its citizens, and mete out punishment and torture with impunity, yet slowly losing his grip on the gravity of the situation and change that surrounds him. This brings to mind that old adage: evil deeds do not go unpunished. Very highly recommended!

2022-10-21 05:23