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benjaminfcruz's review
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
gef's review
3.0
Stone is a very good conventional novelist, according to some very old conventions: pre-Hemingway, Faulkner or Dos Passos, inter alia. Vocabulary is excessive and too flowery for Hemingway, psychology too primitive for Faulkner, narrative too linear for Dos Passos. Plot stars Frank Holliwell, middle-aged, tall, athletic, an alcoholic with a sinister past with the CIA in Vietnam, married to an independent professional whom he appears to love and is now a professor anthropology in Delaware, also with mysterious past (CIA? anthropological? both?) in Central America. Holliwell is an implausible concoction, a mix of James Bond, Leamus & Walter Mitty (or Miniver Cheevy). Somehow they find themselves in a country like Nicaragua, where there's a mystic, 60-ish alcoholic priest, and a bewitchingly innocent nun who -- most implausibly -- lets herself get fucked by the ridiculously incompetent Holliwell. Pablo Tabor, paranoid speed freak, is a delicious character — unreal as a whole, but with believable episodes. This is because his language (in speech and thought) is recognizable & authentic. Other characters (there are many) are much less successful. Politics: a pox on both your houses, but with more sympathy for the ever-doomed and ever-naive rebels against the tyrants who run this mythical country. (Review written in 1986)
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