This novel, Rafael F. Muñoz's second and final, is simply a masterful work: it teaches not only the art of storytelling but also the difficult task of growing and maturing. It teaches, shows, and follows, step by step, a touching relationship between a teenager abandoned by his biological father and an Orozco general who soon becomes his symbolic father.
Among the great storytellers, as Muñoz undoubtedly was, is the wisdom of so subtly and naturally weaving historical events—in this case, the Orozco rebellion of 1912—with the life events of fictional characters.
Always categorized as a "novel of the Mexican Revolution," this admirable novel has suffered from the prejudices that this category has inspired in literary criticism and circulation in Mexico: novels of limited interest to the "historical facts" of a specific era and therefore of little "artistic" value. Ultimat...read more
