Reviews

• The story takes place in the fictional Central American state of Tecan. It follows the stories of three central characters until their ultimate clash at the end of the book. Frank Holliwell is a Vietnam vet turned anthropologist who, upon the request of an academic visits Tecan to deliver a lecture and from there, makes his way to the coastal town of Tecan. Pablo Tabor lives the hand to mouth existence of a speed freak existing only in the moment searching for the feeling the drug provides. He kills his two dogs at the beginning of the story which pretty much ends any empathy the reader may feel toward his character. It's a bit of a tough read but worth the effort.

• This is one of those books to which one comes back 4 or 5 times over the course of a life and it strikes deeper each time. After many readings one knows everything that is going to happen plot-wise and yet that in no way diminishes the enjoyment of the feast of poetic, exact language for its own sake. Especially amazing is the way Stone fleshes out a set of characters, Justin Feeney, Holliwell, Pablo Tabor, Naftali et al, all of whom exhibit what it is really like to be a human being in full ambivalence and confusion, and yet the writing is not at all ambivalent and confused, but pushes to the very limits of verbal expression to say what it is really like to be alive in a fallen, broken world, our world. One of the reasons the book doesn't date is because it strikes at the heart of the American assumption that we have the right to be in charge, an assumption still working itself out in other faraway places that tragically resemble Stone's imaginary Central American country. But the book is not only effective because it is relevant to ongoing cultural issues. There are incredible set-pieces, Holliwell's drunken lecture, the conversation between Naftali and Tabor, the violence on board the vessel Cloud, the climactic events. Exactly where everyone's allegiance really lies is kept ambiguous enough that you have to really stay alert to work through the fog of paranoia that provides the overall atmosphere of the story, even though there is plenty of pitiless Caribbean sunlight piercing that fog.

• Better written than Dog Soldiers which I liked Having been to Costa Rica and Panama in the last two years very strong descriptive prose without impeding the narrative Several vivid characterizations but utterly cynical as opposed to Dog where there was one character who you could at least root for An interlocking plot with three strands which I found ultimately implausible

• This was a book I bought and read for a class. While I'm not a fan of political writing, the book was well-written and contained a beginning, middle, and end for each character's story. Even if the end was not what I wanted to read, it all made sense in the end.

• The incendiary hint of Revolution simmers on the surface of a South American country beset by poverty and the all-consuming appetite of corporate gluttony. The rolling green hills and sparkling beaches of Tecan are perfect for exploitation. The land is already littered with an assortment of "investors" jockeying for inside information. Revolution spells opportunity, out with the old regime, in with the new, and a tidy profit to be made along the way. The only question is whether to "run with the Rabbit or hunt with the Hare?" Saints and sinners compete in this Third World nightmare, each with a different agenda. It's an ideological train wreck and the ultimate victims are the disenfranchised. The name of the game is greed and the players are the usual: privately owned corporations, interested governments, a militia trained to fight insurrection, various criminals, religious zealots and a panoply of hired spies and assorted operatives. Our personal guide is Frank Holliwell, an American anthropologist with "Company" ties from his days in Vietnam, visiting the region ostensibly to give a lecture. Holliwell becomes one more pawn in a dangerous game with incredibly high stakes. In the final act, no one is who he seems in this Darwinian struggle for dominance. The common people are disposable, the cause is mutable and the quality of civilization a casualty of events. Enter at your own risk, this is Robert Stone at his best. But know this: you step into chaos in this novel (with no separate chapters) that jolts from one state of anxiety to another, watching over your shoulder at every turn.

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