My Book Club read this book and had a very lively discussion. Well written, brutal in its reality this story of the Dominican Republic and the Trujillo dictatorship delves into the minds and the collective psychic of leaders, rebels and the people.

Rafael Trujillo, known as El Jefe (“The chief”), was dictator of the Dominican Republic for 30 years; his reign of terror ended in his assassination in 1961. This novel explores the ending days of the Trujillo regime using multiple plot lines / narrators. The novel opens with the fictional Urania Cabral, age 49, returning to the Dominican Republic for the first time in 35 years, to see her dying father. The second chapter introduces Trujillo himself as a narrator, and the third chapter focuses on the band of conspirators who are plotting to assassinate Trujillo.

The novel deals with political and personal corruption, moving back and forth between narrators and time frame. In less skilled hands, this could easily have been the undoing of the novel, but Vargas Llosa is a master craftsman and his writing shines. His use of interlaced dialogue helps to present the various viewpoints of the same set of events, giving the reader a fairly accurate portrayal of the history, while making the story intensely personal.

“Machismo” is also a central theme; Urania is the only female voice. Her point of view, relating her memories as a 14-year-old child, is a significant contrast to the mostly middle-aged-plus men who narrate the significant realities of the Trujillo regime. The greatest impact in the story comes from betrayal – Trujillo betrayed the people of the Dominican Republic. Conspirators were betrayed by fellow conspirators. Husbands betrayed their wives; wives, their husbands. Children betrayed their parents; parents, their children.

I thought the novel started slowly, but after about 80 pages the story really took off and I found myself totally immersed and engaged.