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Adult Books - Fiction - General Fiction
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The Matter of Desire.
Paz Soldan, Edmundo (author).
Apr. 2004. 224p. Houghton, paperback, $12 (0-618-39557-1).
REVIEW.
First published April 1, 2004 (Booklist).
A Bolivian professor probes the depths of his rebel father’s past in this taut, gritty tale of two dramatically different Americas. When Pedro Zabalaga, a Latin American studies scholar, seeks a reprieve from his work--and troubled love life--he returns home to Bolivia and a flood of memories: his friends, family, and the politically charged climate of his fictional native city, Rio Fugitivo. He moves in with his uncle David, a quirky inventor and crossword-puzzle writer, and one of two survivors of a government bombing that killed Pedro’s father some 30 years before. In conversations with David and in the pages of his father’s cult novel, Berkeley , Pedro discovers disturbing truths about the charismatic man who loved his country to the death. Percolating with American pop-culture references, Bolivian National Book Award winner Paz Soldan’s first novel published in English is a bristling alternative to the magical realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Blending history, existentialism, and romantic and political passion, it offers an edgy, urban vision that sizzles from the start. — Allison Block
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