What happens when the revolution burns out and the magic is gone? Pancho Randelli doesn’t know or care. Released from jail to wander the wasteland, he’s haunted by the loss of his great love, Susana, and wonders at the fate of his deputy, Carlitos. He fears for the life of his best friend and hopes he has not become just another victim of madness.
In desperate search for Carlitos, Pancho begins his quest across the shattered landscape of a broken country. While trailing behind cold tracks and blurry memories, he finds something wholly unexpected: freedom. This is not the case for General Juan Marco Machado, who wallows in power at long last. For him, things are not how he originally imagined.
Without magic, all the money and power in the world cannot save the general from downfall and despair. While Pancho may find what he seeks, the general finds nothing but anguish. At the end, neither man will escape the inevitable results of the ideas upon which the revolution advanced, lived for a season only to burn itself out.
Goodreads description
The Burning of San Porfirio is the sequel to The Lieutenant of San Porfirio, which I reviewed at the end of 2013 here. Although I enjoyed The Lieutenant, I had some reservations about it. I have no such reservations about Joel Hirst's sequel.
The reason for this is partly because this book continues and finishes the story of the two men - Pancho and Machado. There is an inherent problem with writing a story of two books or more - how to finish the earlier book without the reader feeling disappointed with an incomplete ending. Moreover the characterization is inevitably not complete in the first novel. There is a school of thought that you should not publish books in series until all are written, so the reader can move on to the next book when they finish the previous one.
The Burning in a way picks up where The Lieutenant left off. Picks up not in the sense of time, as many years have past and the young student leader is now a white-haired political prisoner of many years, but in some ways Pancho's story has been in a hiatus during his prison years. Outside the prison the world has changed for the worse under the socialist dictatorship that Pancho had defied so unsuccessfully. For Machado the intervening period has seen a steady climb to power and wealth as the dictator's right-hand and as the country's drug lord.
The novel follows the stories of the two men. When the dictator dies, Machado makes his play for supreme power and Pancho is released under amnesty into a world he hardly recognises. Pancho journeys through a country now riven by civil unrest as Machado and his rival the vice-president fight it out. But whilst it is a physical journey, Pancho's journey is also in some ways a modern-day secular pilgrim's progress. Pancho encounters a series of temptations on his travels in his search for political and personal enlightenment.
The descriptions of the landscape of South America are top notch and made all the more powerful because the land itself contains a magic which reflects what is happens. Such an approach can be a sloppy easy device to develop atmosphere, but here it is genuine magic realism.
One criticism - I don't think the cover works for this reflective piece of magic realism. Yes, the city of San Porforio and the wider country are torn apart by war and conflict, but this is not a war novel as such. It is so much more.
I thank the author for giving me a review copy in return for a fair review.
The reason for this is partly because this book continues and finishes the story of the two men - Pancho and Machado. There is an inherent problem with writing a story of two books or more - how to finish the earlier book without the reader feeling disappointed with an incomplete ending. Moreover the characterization is inevitably not complete in the first novel. There is a school of thought that you should not publish books in series until all are written, so the reader can move on to the next book when they finish the previous one.
The Burning in a way picks up where The Lieutenant left off. Picks up not in the sense of time, as many years have past and the young student leader is now a white-haired political prisoner of many years, but in some ways Pancho's story has been in a hiatus during his prison years. Outside the prison the world has changed for the worse under the socialist dictatorship that Pancho had defied so unsuccessfully. For Machado the intervening period has seen a steady climb to power and wealth as the dictator's right-hand and as the country's drug lord.
The novel follows the stories of the two men. When the dictator dies, Machado makes his play for supreme power and Pancho is released under amnesty into a world he hardly recognises. Pancho journeys through a country now riven by civil unrest as Machado and his rival the vice-president fight it out. But whilst it is a physical journey, Pancho's journey is also in some ways a modern-day secular pilgrim's progress. Pancho encounters a series of temptations on his travels in his search for political and personal enlightenment.
The descriptions of the landscape of South America are top notch and made all the more powerful because the land itself contains a magic which reflects what is happens. Such an approach can be a sloppy easy device to develop atmosphere, but here it is genuine magic realism.
One criticism - I don't think the cover works for this reflective piece of magic realism. Yes, the city of San Porforio and the wider country are torn apart by war and conflict, but this is not a war novel as such. It is so much more.
I thank the author for giving me a review copy in return for a fair review.
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