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Pandemic of Lies: The Exile
By: Pedro C. LopezeBook Publisher: AuthorSolutions
Imprint: iUniverse.com
Format: Adobe Encrypted (DRM)
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Reader Review: The novel Pandemic of Lies: The Exile is indeed a sui generis work of art. It is a book of fiction written in English by a Cuban-American author living in a Spanish-speaking country, namely Ecuador, and dealing with events that occur mostly in a mythical South American nation called Banador. Another unique element found in the book is the fact that the Machiavellian genius of a president who rules Banador is a homosexual haunted by the existence of an unauthorized video CD that shows him making love to his minister of government. The explicit nature of the VCD makes President Alejandro Salvador attempt to control all three branches of government, including what is considered the fourth one: the media or press. The protagonist of the book, Manuel Cruz, a Cuban-American like the author, comes to live in the Latin American country of Banador with a set of values quite different from the one that prevails there. He has a strong appreciation for truth, but in Banador too much truth can get you killed; and this is what could possibly happen to Manuel, who cannot conceive not only how corruption can be allowed to run rampant in front of a president’s nose but also how Alejandro Salvador is incapable of coming to terms with his own sexuality and refuses to step out of the closet and announce to the world his true nature for the sake of truth. The novel is full of ironies and reversals of roles which I cannot go into without ruining the suspense for future readers of this political thriller. The point of view is exclusively first person. We are always in the mind of the main character, Manuel Cruz. This contributes to the imminence and realism of the narration. However, although the protagonist remains throughout most of the novel confined to a hut and its immediate surroundings composed of a river, rice fields, and a marsh, Manuel’s mind wanders to his remote as well as recent past while he attempts to find an answer to his present predicament of self-imposed exile. Through this interior monologue or narrative, we are allowed to travel to places such as Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai, Havana, Miami, and Bogota. The book deals with political theory based on current geopolitical events, but the element of existential intimacy and immediacy is never lost as the plot develops and reaches a dénouement suddenly set on a vertiginous pace that leaves you breathless. I would even say that the book belongs more to the literary genre than to the suspense one, although many whodunit and cliffhanger ingredients prevail in the work. The author Pedro C. Lopez, in his style of imaginative writing, comes across as an interesting mixture of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Franz Kafka, and Stieg Larsson. Lopez exhibits the same preoccupation and even obsession with conscience as Dostoyevsky and creates a fantastic character in the form of a talking giant Galapagos turtle reminiscent of Kafka’s insect-like Gregor Samsa. Lopez also denounces the cancerous innards of a Banadorian political society as rotten to the core as that of Larsson’s own in Sweden. Although the first two literary giants did not write a trilogy, Lopez claims in his blog that he has already started the second volume of his literary triad—Pandemic of Lies: The Resurrection.
After Manuel Cruz moves from the United States to the South American Republic of Banador, he thinks he is going to live in paradise. Instead, he finds himself hiding out in a hut at the edge of a marsh, after leaving behind his wife, children, and haciendas. Somebody wants Manuel dead, and he thinks it is a diabolical political genius-the president of Banador. President Alejandro has an insatiable thirst for power. In just two years, he has seized control of nearly every major branch of the government and two television stations that pepper the airwaves with self-indulgent propaganda-all without a coup d'état. At one time, Manuel was not only President Alejandro's good friend, but also his presidential advisor. But when Alejandro makes a covert state visit to Cuba to meet with Fidel Castro, Manuel takes revenge. Soon Alejandro's wife and their children are leaving Banador for Europe; she wants a divorce, and Alejandro wants nothing more than for Manuel to disappear forever. In a last attempt to save his life, Manuel helps Alejandro's political opponent defeat his former friend in the upcoming presidential election-but as turmoil continues to swirl around him, he wonders if he will ever be able to trust anyone again.
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| Title of Suspense & Thrillers eBook: Pandemic of Lies: The Exile | |
| Release Date: 11-17-2010 | |
| Publisher: iUniverse.com |
This eBook download is available in the following formats:
| Parent title | Pandemic of Lies: The Exile |
|---|---|
| Encrypted (DRM) | Yes |
| SKU | 9781450253338 |
| File size | 4988 |
| Security | n/a |
| Printing | Not allowed |
| Copying | Not allowed |
| Read aloud | No Sys requirements Download reader |
| Devices | Samsung Tablet, Apple Ipad & Iphone, Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo eReader, Aluratek Libre, Iliad, Nokia, Blackberry, Hanlin |
| Note | Excellent navigation features are available via Adobe such as bookmarks and a quick access table of contents. Text search is easily accessible. An Adobe DRM-protected file is different than a pdf file in that it uses Adobe DRM (Digital Rights Management) technology, which authors and publishers use to protect their content from illegal online distribution and to set certain privileges such as restrictions on copying and printing. |
Pandemic of Lies: The Exile
Pandemic of Lies: The Exile
By Pedro C. L...
Title: Pandemic of Lies: The Exile May 27, 2011 A former professional soccer player with a penchant for inflicting “accidental” own goals, a serial killer who’s bumping off whoever gets too close to the chief executive of a country called Banador or gets to know too much, a homosexual national president who fears that, if his true sexuality is discovered , his political career will go into a tailspin, a former finance minister who’s writing a book sharply criticizing the Banadorian government and, in the process, putting his life into serious risk, a presidential aide-de-camp whose loyalty is questioned from all sides, and a Cuban-American businessman who, instead of finding Paradise in Banador, is suddenly enveloped in a nightmarish hell—this multi-hued vast array of original characters is probably the key ingredient that makes the novel Pandemic of Lies: The Exile very hard to put down once one becomes immersed in it. The world depicted in this mythic South American Republic not only mirrors quite faithfully what occurs on a daily basis in many countries south of our border in terms of the poverty- and corruption-ridden realities of their societies but also allows an in-depth look into the heart and soul of some very complex people who live at the global edge of things.
Average Customer Review:
Number of Comments: 4 Rating(s) 3 Review(s)
A Gem of a Novel
Reviewer: A reader from USA
Politics South of the Border in Pandemics of Lies: The Exile
April 7, 2011
Reviewer:
The political content in the novel Pandemics of Lies: The Exile is high. The thriller side of the book cannot be denied either. Thus, it could be said that the Pandemic of Lies is a political suspense novel. Still, such a description does not do full justice to the work. Pandemic of Lies is more than that. Reminiscent of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s works, it is a cry against the assault of the modern state against man’s basic rights through manipulation or force.
I should immediately add that there is no political pamphleteering in the novel. As a matter of fact, there seems to be a continuous dialectical debate going on between President Alejandro Salvador and his former political advisor Manuel Cruz, but at no time does the political controversy turn into a battle between Good and Evil. All the characters in Pandemic of Lies are flawed, including the Cuban-American protagonist Cruz. The grey, not the black and white, predominates.
Being the daughter of Asian immigrants, I can appreciate where the author Pedro C. Lopez is coming from. But unlike I, who established roots in L.A. permanently and have never returned to make my home in the part of the Asian continent where my parents were born, the Cuban-American Lopez returned to Latin America and now lives in Ecuador, where he apparently wrote his novel. The fictional character Manuel Cruz does something similar, but to his surprise it turns out that to national power comes a promising, young John-F.-Kennedy-type president who, once installed in the presidential seat, begins to show a proclivity toward the authoritarian way of governing. This not only turns Manuel’s stomach but reminds him of the hateful Fidel Castro as well. In Manuel’s mind the situation triggers memories that go back to his native Cuba and Castro’s revolution. In this flow of old remembrances, he equates Cuba with a lost Eden and Castro with the devil that drove him from there and, in the process, economically and spiritually destroyed his homeland. So Manuel Cruz decides to do something about a similar process occurring in his new country of residence, the mythic Banador.
The book’s strength, in my honest opinion, derives from the passion embedded in every page of the novel. One cannot help but perceive that Pedro C. López feels his themes. Yes, there is planning, yes, there is structure, and, yes, there is plot. But all these elements are subservient to the driving force behind this captivating work of literature: the deep desire to get the urgent message out about the growing loss of democracy and freedom south of the border before it is too late.
The Uniqueness of Pandemic of Lies: The Exile
April 4, 2011
Reviewer:
The novel Pandemic of Lies: The Exile is indeed a sui generis work of art. It is a book of fiction written in English by a Cuban-American author living in a Spanish-speaking country, namely Ecuador, and dealing with events that occur mostly in a mythical South American nation called Banador. Another unique element found in the book is the fact that the Machiavellian genius of a president who rules Banador is a homosexual haunted by the existence of an unauthorized video CD that shows him making love to his minister of government. The explicit nature of the VCD makes President Alejandro Salvador attempt to control all three branches of government, including what is considered the fourth one: the media or press.
The protagonist of the book, Manuel Cruz, a Cuban-American like the author, comes to live in the Latin American country of Banador with a set of values quite different from the one that prevails there. He has a strong appreciation for truth, but in Banador too much truth can get you killed; and this is what could possibly happen to Manuel, who cannot conceive not only how corruption can be allowed to run rampant in front of a president’s nose but also how Alejandro Salvador is incapable of coming to terms with his own sexuality and refuses to step out of the closet and announce to the world his true nature for the sake of truth.
The novel is full of ironies and reversals of roles which I cannot go into without ruining the suspense for future readers of this political thriller. The point of view is exclusively first person. We are always in the mind of the main character, Manuel Cruz. This contributes to the imminence and realism of the narration. However, although the protagonist remains throughout most of the novel confined to a hut and its immediate surroundings composed of a river, rice fields, and a marsh, Manuel’s mind wanders to his remote as well as recent past while he attempts to find an answer to his present predicament of self-imposed exile. Through this interior monologue or narrative, we are allowed to travel to places such as Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai, Havana, Miami, and Bogota.
The book deals with political theory based on current geopolitical events, but the element of existential intimacy and immediacy is never lost as the plot develops and reaches a dénouement suddenly set on a vertiginous pace that leaves you breathless. I would even say that the book belongs more to the literary genre than to the suspense one, although many whodunit and cliffhanger ingredients prevail in the work.
The author Pedro C. Lopez, in his style of imaginative writing, comes across as an interesting mixture of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Franz Kafka, and Stieg Larsson. Lopez exhibits the same preoccupation and even obsession with conscience as Dostoyevsky and creates a fantastic character in the form of a talking giant Galapagos turtle reminiscent of Kafka’s insect-like Gregor Samsa. Lopez also denounces the cancerous innards of a Banadorian political society as rotten to the core as that of Larsson’s own in Sweden.
Although the first two literary giants did not write a trilogy, Lopez claims in his blog that he has already started the second volume of his literary triad—Pandemic of Lies: The Resurrection.
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