“Harsh Times” by Mario Vargas Llosa

When you read a novel by Mario Vargas Llosa, you never know if you’re reading fiction, non-fiction, or a combination of the two. When I first started reading his most recent novel, Harsh Times  (English edition, 2021), I thought someone had made a mistake and Vargas Llosa had written of mid-20^th century Guatemala. 

I first discovered Vargas Llosa in the 1980s, when I took a class in “The Latin American Novel.” He was part of what had become known as the “Latin American Boom,” a veritable explosion of literature that included the magic realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez (like 100 Years of Solitude), the wonderful novels of Carlos Fuentes (The Death of Artemio Cruz), the poetry and fiction of Octavio Paz, and writers like Manuel Puig (Kiss of the Spider Woman). 

 

For my class, we read Vargas Llosa’s The Green House (1968). On a business trip, I found and began reading The War of the End of the World (1984). For my major paper, I read, analyzed, and reconstructed Conversation in the Cathedral(1975), a huge novel without an immediate discernible narrative structure (it’s there, but you have to do some heavy lifting to find it). After that, reading the funny Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1982) punched home for me his broad reach of topic, history, and popular culture. And I’ve now read most of his works. 

Mario Vargas Llosa

For Harsh Times, Vargas Llosa tells the story of the before, during, and after of two government overthrows in Guatemala in the 1950s. The first was 1954, the overthrow of the democratically elected Jacobo Arbenz that was orchestrated, planned, and financed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (an event involving mercenaries, John Foster Dulles of the State Department, and his brother Allen Dulles, director of the CIA; the U.S. could often be its own worst enemy). The second event was the 1957 assassination of Arbenz’s successor, the military dictator Carlos Castillo Armas.

 

Vargas Llosa moves back and forth between the two stories, tying them together with real major characters and (possibly fictional) minor characters. He keeps you guessing as to what is real and what is invented. The overall story is underpinned by extensive historical research. The author doesn’t do anything by halves.

 

If there is one character who seems to move almost interchangeably through the narrative, it is Marta Borrero Parra, called “Miss Guatemala” by everyone from her father to her numerous lovers. For a time, she was the mistress of the dictator assassinated in 1957 and was said to be involved in the killing. Or it may have been that she was implicated to direct attention away from the real killers. We follow her from her life in Guatemala, her fleeing to the Dominican Republic, her work as a political journalist, and her likely involvement as an agent for the CIA, which spirited her out of the Dominican Republic when strongman Rafael Trujillo was assassinated in 1961. An ardent anti-communist, Trujillo was famous for his brutal regime; one of his main henchmen is a significant character in Harsh Times.

 

By the end of the book, the reader is prepared for the epilogue – an interview between the author and Miss Guatemala, now in her 80s and living outside Washington, D.C., not far from CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. I assume the interview really happened, but Vargas Llosa is so good at imagining what historical people said and thought that the interview could easily be entirely invented. But it’s a feature that makes Harsh Times an impressive feat – and perhaps sleight of hand.

 

Related:

 

Edith Grossman’s Why Translation Matters.

 

The past is never past.

 

I grew up in 100 years of solitude.

"The Two Hundred Ghost" by Henrietta Hamilton

The Two Hundred Ghost by Henrietta Hamilton was first published in 1956, the first of eight Sally and Johnny Heldar mysteries. The first thing that struck me was the title: shouldn’t “ghost” be plural?

As it turns out, no. The “Two Hundred” refers to an address, 200 Charing Cross Road in London. In the 1950s, Charing Cross was the domain of a slew of bookstores – Foyle’s, used book shops, antiquarian bookstores, and more. It was a book lover’s paradise. Even today, 70 years later, it still boasts of a considerable number of shops. 

 

The “Two Hundred” of the title is the address of Heldar’s Antiquarian Bookstore, one of the venerable book businesses of London. Johnny Heldar is one of several Heldar family members working there, continuing the family’s long-time involvement in the business. Sally Merton (before she becomes Sally Heldar) works in the front shop, deftly handling customers and directing them to the appropriate person. Members of the firm are keeping a wary eye out; a number of thefts of valuable rare books have been reported up and down the street.

 

A few staff members have reported seeing a ghost on the upper floors, a white figure who appears and then vanishes. The ghost talk is discouraged, until a particularly unliked staff member (with the appropriate last name of Butcher) is found in his office, stabbed to death. The police believe the murderer is inside the firm, and suspicion falls upon one of the family members. Johnny and Sally, however, know the police are wrong, and they work quietly together to investigate the case on their own. What they learn is that there’s a possible tie-in to the book thefts.

 

Henrietta Hamilton

A mystery involving rare and antiquarian books became Hamilton’s theme for the remaining seven novels in the series, and Sally and Johnny Heldar (they eventually marry) were popular sleuthing couple in the late 1950s and early 1960s. 

 

Henrietta Hamilton was the pseudonym for Hester Dunne Shepherd (1920-1995). A native of Dundee, she earned an honors degree in Modern Languages at St. Hugh’s College, Oxford. She served in the Wrens in World War II, and after the war worked at a bookstore in London, where she learned the antiquarian book trade. She also wrote nine other novels, none of which were published. 

 

The Two Hundred Ghost would definitely be classified as a “cozy” mystery today. The violence is safely off-stage, and the solution depends upon a twist at the end. But it’s a fun, intriguing story, with a little bit of romance and a lot of interesting information about the rare book trade.

"Paradise Palms" by Paul Haddad

It’s 1957, and the Soviet Union and just launched Sputnik. The Shapiro family lives in Los Angeles and operates the Paradise Palms Hotel, a once-regal property that is aging something less than gracefully.  

Max Shapiro is the family patriarch, a rough-and-tumble sort who grew up in rough-and-tumble Chicago on the border between legality and gangsters. His four grown sons are Aaron, married with three children; fraternal twins David and Leo, both unmarried; and Rudy, the baby of the family who has never quite seemed able to grow up. David is the family caretaker and de facto leader; hotel staff bring problems to David, not Max. 

 

The story opens at the funeral of Marta, Max’s wife and mother of his four children. That Max had brought his girlfriend explains a lot about Max. That the girlfriend is named Kitty Kay explains a lot about her. Max and Kitty live at the hotel, as do David and Leo.

 

A new family wrinkle is added with the appearance of Rae, an attractive black woman who happens to be Max’s daughter from a liaison with a maid. To Max’s credit, he accepts her; he’s provided for her since her birth. The sons are thrown, and initially only Leo accepts his half-sister.

 

Paul Haddad

What the four sons and Rae begin to find is that Max and Kitty are entangled with the mob, and the mob is closing its fists around the Paradise Palms. It wants that property for what it’s worth is the high-flying real estate market of Los Angeles in the late 1950s. And the question they, and especially David, face is to what lengths they’re prepared to go to protect their father, the hotel, and the family. 

 

Paradise Palms by Paul Haddad is the story of the Shapiro family and the hotel, the incursions being attempted by the mob (including a historical figure or two), and how the personal lives of the sons begin to enter into the entire family and hotel dynamic. It’s a fascinating story told well. (It is also a story that includes rough language and a number of scenes of violence.)

 

 Haddad, a native of Hollywood and Los Angeles, has had an extensive career in television and film. He first published book was nonfiction, High Fives, Pennant Drives, and Fernandomania: A Fan’s History of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Glory Years, 1977-1981 (2012). He’s also published the novels Skinny White Freak and Aramid, and the nonfiction book 10,000 Steps A Day in L.A.: 52 Walking Adventures. He lives in Los Angeles.

 

Paradise Palms takes the reader in unexpected direction but always remains faithful to the core story of a family and the lengths it’s prepared to go to protect itself. 

"Crimes of August" by Rubem Fonseca

It’s 1954 Rio de Janeiro. Alberto Mattos is that rarest of all birds – an honest police detective in a department where everyone’s on the take. Everyone, including his boss, his subordinate, the cops on the beat, and all the other departments. He is also that rare bird who believes in following the law, which means letting suspects go when there’s no evidence. 

It’s a perilous time in Rio and Brazil. A failed attempt to kill a journalist is leading to protests, condemnations, and the military beginning to become more than restless. Politicians, even those who support the current president of the country, are considering changing allegiances for their own safety and survival. The press is do its best to keep public opinion inflamed. One senator, a supporter of the president, has his plate full of worries, including the possibility that his own involvement in graft and corruption may come to light.

Mattos is called to a murder scene. A man of about 30 has been found strangled in his bed; he turns out to be the head of a finance and trading firm at the center of graft and corruption. The evidence is strange – blood on the bed does not belong to the victim, and someone, likely the killer, took a shower after the murder. The man’s wife is having an affair with the husband of a former girlfriend of Mattos. Mattos soon learns that every suspect has a motive, and every suspect has an alibi.

Rubem Fonseca

Through a multitude of interlocking and overlapping circles of relationships, Mattos must thread his way through passion, infidelity, corruption, political instability, and colleagues who assume they are the law. And all the while he’s nursing a serious stomach ulcer.

Crimes of August by Rubem Fonseca was first published in Portuguese in 1990. The English edition, published in 2014, was translated by Clifford Landers. It is a dark tale, tracking several different stories simultaneously, all framed by the detective’s investigation but eventually leading to a fusion of motives and events. Fonseca included a number of real people as characters and real events, artfully blending them into a coherent story. The novel includes a multitude of names, some looking and sounding close but actually belonging to characters. As a result, the novel requires a close reading, but the reward for doing so is a large one.

Fonseca began writing later and he specialized in crime writing. He lived most of life in Rio de Janeiro. He became a police officer in suburban Rio in 1952, writing the crime reports that would later become the basis for his stories. He studied business administration at New York University from 1953 to 1954, returning to the police force in Rio until 1958. He began writing stories in the early 1960s, and published his first collection, “The Prisoners,” in 1963. His works were often censored by the Brazilian military government for their violent and sexually graphic content. Fonseca received numerous prizes for his writing, including the Luís de Camões Prize for Literature and the Juan Rulfo Literature Prize for Latin American and Caribbean Literature. He died in April of 2020.

While Crimes of August is set in a Brazilian city some 66 years ago, and published 30 years ago, at times it seems eerily contemporary and transcending its geography – fearful and power-hungry politicians, elites who believe the law doesn’t apply to them, crime in the streets that seems out of control, and a press less concerned with the news and more concerned with using its power to bring down a government. It’s a compelling story.

Related:

The Taker & Other Stories by Ruben Fonseca.

The Lost Manuscript by Ruben Fonseca.

Falling in Love with “Brooklyn”

It’s been a long time since I fell in love with a movie, 34 years to be exact, and the movie was the Oscar Award-winning Chariots of Fire. Based on real events and people, it was a film that told a story, yes, but a story that swept you up in its characters, a group of young men who reached for something beyond themselves.

And now I’ve fallen in love with 2015’s Brooklyn.

I didn’t think film producers made movies like this anymore. Brooklyn is a love story, a coming-of-age story, an immigrant’s story, and the story of a young woman who’s making her world in the world. If it included a subtle or not-so-subtle political or social message, a feature of many movies today that tends to make them something less than what they could be, then I missed it.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Photograph: Emory Cohen and Saorise Ronan in a scene from Brooklyn.