Chanticleer Book Reviews

Tag: Historical Caribbean & Latin Fiction

  • MIGUELITO’S CONFESSION by Miguel A. De La Torre – Historical Fiction, Cultural Heritage Fiction, Latin Literature

     

    Miguelito’s Confession by Miguel A. De La Torre shows the resonate struggle of escaping the generational cycle of poverty and injustice.

    Human nature is a product of circumstance, interwoven with the impact of one generation on the next. Sometimes history teaches people lessons of pain, cruelty, and inhumanity. How can someone rise above the disadvantages they’re raised in, the pressures that hold them hostage from their own goals and wishes? Especially at risk are the innocent children caught in the midst of a maniacal battle within the corrupt powers of society. Can an illegal immigrant find success and happiness despite the brutalities of life? And what is the personal cost of pursuing justice?

    Manuel de la Cruz is dying, and he is alone.

    At the end of his life, he suffers from dementia, a mixed blessing that releases him from the violent slice of history he had fully participated in. It allows him to forget the cruelty and violence he inflicted as part of the police force during the 1959 Cuban Revolution. Even the times that followed are lost to him, all he did to escape from the consequences of his actions by escaping to the U.S.

    Yet suddenly, in his final moments, Manuel is granted the ability to think clearly again, a sign that justice is possible. As Manuel leaves this world, he is haunted by what his life has been, his impact upon others and his family, and especially the psychological inheritance he leaves his son Miguelito.

    Now, this is Miguelito’s story, and he takes a difficult journey.

    As a young boy, his family lived in the slums of New York. It’s a filthy, dangerous place to grow up, and its threats are magnified many times over for an illegal immigrant boy who is despised for being Latino. The author is masterful in his portrayal of this revolting setting.

    Miguelito seeks out ways to survive his painful world. He learns from others who dwell in the corners of humanity, minorities who are punished for not being what the majorities require. Playing the social games forced upon him, Miguelito discovers some peace, persistence, and answers through his secretive worship of African gods. It’s an unexpected friend who introduces him to this path, helping him weather the turmoil that his mere existence incites around him.

    Author and Professor Miguel A. De La Torre lifts conventional history out of a single point of view. Miguelito’s Confession brings to life the complex past settings, and the lessons revealed both sting and inspire.

    This is history shown without glorification. Readers will be engaged by the author’s ability to mold multi-dimensional characters with complex motives. The backdrop slice of life is described artfully within a foundation built by preceding generations. Vivid pictures of human interaction drive the present and shape the future, holding the reader in a thought-provoking trance.

    Empathy for the characters pulls the reader deeper and deeper into the story, in pursuit of hope. Will they uncover the hidden answer to what can make life worth living, and what can finally bring justice?

     

     

    5 Stars! Best Book Chanticleer Book Reviews

  • IN the LAND of the FEATHERED SERPENT by Richard C. Brusca – Historical Caribbean & Latin Fiction, Magical Realism, Adventure Fiction

    IN the LAND of the FEATHERED SERPENT by Richard C. Brusca – Historical Caribbean & Latin Fiction, Magical Realism, Adventure Fiction

    Odel Bernini wades deeper and deeper into treacherous political intrigue, in Richard C. Brusca’s Historical Adventure novel, In the Land of the Feathered Serpent. 

    This story, like the feathered serpent itself, moves time and space to visit an era remembered by many Americans as one where the U.S. government worked to destabilize several Central American regimes who were at odds with its politics. 

    A young Odel works as chief curator of a world-renowned natural history museum in Seattle, an occasional teacher at a college in nearby Tacoma, and an archaeology hobbyist. His marine biology fieldwork in support of his specialty – the documentation of crustaceans in Central America – brings him time and again to nations long under the political sway of the United States, especially Nicaragua and Guatemala.  

    Revolutions and counterrevolutions create governments and insurgents that brutalize the local populations, especially the indigenous people. Prodded by his wife, the daughter of an American cultural attaché, Bernini approaches the CIA to ask whether it might fund his continued research in the region in exchange for “some silly things” he could do for them. 

    Those “silly things” lead to funding from a foundation to cover his travel, but with strings attached. 

    He collects crustaceans and intel. Having sold his soul, he gradually undertakes more dangerous tasks on the CIA’s behalf. Like a frog placed into room-temperature water, it is almost too late before he realizes that the burner has been lit.  In addition to the growing peril to his life, Bernini falls for a devastatingly gorgeous woman he meets in a hotel bar, on the eve of his first assignment.  

    As things grow more complicated, the malicious Guatemalan army tears through the jungle looking for Bernini. He must contend with the wildlife buzzing and slithering around him in the dark and hopes he can escape – right up until he meets a venomous fer-de-lance snake. 

    Author Brusca delivers modern man’s Odyssey, both in scale and complexity. 

    We are riveted to this man’s journey of self-discovery through challenging times as he navigates the siren calls of the CIA and impossibly beautiful and sexually adept women while his mundane life as an academic and museum curator disintegrates. The lead character’s descent into calamitous Central American politics and American foreign policy plays foil to erotic scenes with his wife back home in Seattle, a darkly fascinating and even more beautiful seductress in Central America, and a final twist coupling with a yet more mysterious and enigmatically enthralling woman. 

    Author Brusca has an effortless style that draws the reader in and manages to convey needed facts of science, political history, and geography that quickly absorb the reader. Brusca delivers a mega-novel that will resonate with readers drawn to sensually charged, clandestine storylines that run through dangerous political landscapes and treacherous jungles. In the end, much like the heroes he echoes, Odel Bernini, is a super-heroic Indiana Jones archetype with a whole bunch of sexy Bond on the side. 

     

    Chanticleer Book Reviews 4 star silver foil book sticker