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AMERICAN VISA by Juan de Recacoechea

American%20Visa%20cover.jpgJuan de Recacoechea’s AMERICAN VISA ($14.95) is the most popular novel ever published in Bolivia, and it has a lot to recommend it. The narrator has a sense of humor and a sharp eye. His sentences have sting. He captures the teaming life of La Paz in scene after scene, and creates tension by subjecting a genuinely nice guy, an ex-school teacher trying to get to Florida to live with his son, to tense obstacles on his road to a visa.

Then, midway through, out of nowhere, Mario Alvarez, the hero, decides without a moment of forethought or the briefest moral quandary that he needs to commit a robbery and murder, and without another mention of his son, changes into a ruthless asshole. I bailed on page 141: “I had a single window for finishing Arminda off with a crushing blow to the neck…”

Hey, is this the guy I’ve been worrying about? A school teacher? I hope he doesn’t get his visa.

Posted on Saturday, May 19, 2007 at 09:56AM by Registered CommenterNick DiMartino | Comments1 Comment | References2 References

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Reader Comments (1)

Did you really bail? Go back and read the rest!

October 11, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterParlancheq

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