The breakout novel from a prizewinning young writer: a "surrealistic
tour de force" (O, The Oprah Magazine) about one man's obsessive
search to find the truth of another man's downfall.
Nelson's life is not turning out the way he hoped. His girlfriend is
sleeping with another man; his brother has left their South American
country, leaving Nelson to care for their widowed mother; and his acting
career can't seem to get off the ground. That is, until he lands a
starring role in a touring revival of The Idiot President, a legendary
play by Nelson's hero, Henry Nuñez, leader of the storied guerrilla
theater troupe Diciembre. And that's when the real trouble begins.
Nelson's fate is slowly revealed through the investigation of the
narrator, a young man obsessed with Nelson's story--and perhaps closer
to it than he lets on. In sharp, vivid, and beautiful prose, Alarcón
delivers a compulsively readable narrative and a provocative meditation
on fate, identity, and the large consequences that can result from even
our smallest choices.