It's 2008, and John Maddox, NYU Journalism grad and aspirant to a New York Times staff-writing position, has compromised his higher journalistic principles and grudgingly taken an assignment writing a freelance piece for the National Enquirer. He arrives in a remote village in North-Central Mexico to interview the residents there, who believe that their tiny mexi-hamlet is home to the REAL Chupacabra.  Not the diseased, coyote-with-the-mange canid spotted in South Texas recently, but the feared, fanged, taloned, and winged, goat-sucking mythical Mexican Monster!   It turns out the villagers are telling the truth, but that's just the amuse-bouche, as the Chupacabra has his own ideas about being exposed to the wide world. The creature harbors his own secrets that have far reaching influence and consequence, and his travails are illuminated in a portrait of the side-by-side co-existence of his own, unseen, chimerically primeval realm, and our workaday, pop-culture obsessed, modern world. When the two ultimately intersect in this highly allegorical tale, one reality oddly reflects the petty compulsions, fears, and desires of the other. Revenge of the Chupacabra is definitely a genre-bending novel that operates on several potent levels at once. Three main motifs intertwine to entertain the reader, cultivate her or his curiosity, and enlighten and inform about the nature of modern media while titillating the imagination with a campy, yet thrilling monster story. The story's central theme revolves around western pop-culture and the news media, and the upshot of traditional, daily print-newspapers being supplanted by the ubiquitous, inescapable Interwebs. A playful allegory is exploited to comment on the decline of "hard news" and the resultant, sweeping rise of Infotainment. These light-hearted examinations of 'pop media' are augmented by the psychological introspections of the three main characters, providing a conspiratorial, insider's view of their nuanced and separate but conjoined motivations of ego, culpability, alienation, and loss. A third leitmotif features a twist on superstitious fears, mythological fascinations, and how they both converge with life in our modern world. Sprinkled throughout the story are references to Hispanic culture, whimsical re-draftings of Mexico's historical record, and a collection of interesting, funny, and fascinating characters who help move the plot along in unexpected and intriguing ways.     

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