4.5 stars

This book has made me want to learn more from my parents about what it meant to be born and live through the Trujillo era. What it meant to my family and what was really going on during that time. I have heard some stories from my father, but now the context of understanding has broadened... this book has illustrated to me the pain of a nation and it's impact on individual lives.

It has also made me think of the depraved regimes that exist today and how complicit we are in our inactivity... why so many men of power choose their greedy and sadistic lives, and so many choose to do nothing.

The Feast of the Goat, highlights the story of the era of Trujillo in a way that makes you see history as real and not just text in a book. Although fictionalized, it brings home, the vast pain of a nation; but also, how blind and apathetic a people can be. It breaks my heart to see that so many innocent people are made to pay for the choices of the few.

I would like think my choices would be different given the same set of circumstances, but then, I was born a different person, in a different era.

A powerful novel about the Trujillo era in the Dominican Republic told with a strong narrative voice. Most acclaimed novels that deal with such dark themes as this one does usually do so allegorically. This is especially true of Latin American literature and its ever prevalent magic realism. The feast of the Goat however reads like a political thriller with the multiple interlocking timelines being the only ostentatious literary device Llosa employs. The dramatic time frame changes were a little jarring to begin with but worked very well once I got used to them. Llosa does a magnificent job of bringing to life Rafael Trujillo complete with his megalomania, paranoia and growing discontent with his impotent seventy year old body. Around this central figure, Llosa weaves multiple stories featuring a lot of secondary characters. Some of these are well done while others feel rushed. Overall, this book is a must read for its unflinching portrait of the absolute corruption that inevitably accompanies a tyrannical government and how supposedly virtuous men and women can fall prey to the banality of such evil. ( )

This work of historical fiction is a well-researched and informative, suspenseful novel. It explores the motives for the assassination of the dictator Rafael Trujillo, the aftermath, and the personal toll that political machinations took on the people involved with the regime.

It is difficult to read, yet fascinating. The author is able to bring you into the minds of the main players, both the heroes and the villains. The author observes that the dictator Trujillo (aka "the Goat") had created a perverse system, "one in which all Dominicans sooner or later took part as accomplices, a system which only exiles (not always) and the dead could escape." As accomplices Dominicans participated in spying, betrayal, assault human trafficking, horrendous torture, and murder..." the Goat had taken from people the sacred attribute given to them by God: their free will."

Urania's ability to confess the betrayal that almost destroyed her life, Balaguer's democratization of his country, and Imbert's survival and return to Dominican society were all accomplished with some difficult and sometimes extreme decisions. This restoration of their free will is also what ultimately gives the book hope. ( )

Here's what I wrote in 2008 about this read: "Haunting. Domincan Republic was run for a very bad long long time by a very bad dude; despot General Rafael Truillo; descriptions of torture of his murderers still shocks." ( )

Historical fiction about the dictatorship of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina in the Dominican Republic. It utilizes three storylines, including flashbacks and flash-forwards, to tell the story of this oppressive regime and its aftermath. It opens in 1996, with Urania Cabral, daughter of a (fictional) former supporter of Trujillo. At age 49, she has returned after thirty-five years in the US. She eventually reveals the reason for her lengthy absence. The second storyline covers the last day of Trujillo’s life. It portrays the dictator and his devotees and provides the historic content of Trujillo’s power base. The third story involves the group of assassins awaiting arrival of Trujillo’s chauffeured car. It covers how they became disillusioned and what drove them to decide to kill “the Goat.”

This book portrays abuse of power and the lingering psychological impact on the people who lived through it. Though the Cabral family is fictional, Trujillo and his assassins were real people, and the descriptions of events are based on what actually occurred. Their thoughts, of course, are fictionalized. It reflects the dangers of following the Cult of Personality.

The book is well-written and well-crafted. The interwoven storylines inform each other, such that the reader gains a vivid picture of what life was like in the Dominican Republic under Trujillo. Be aware that the content includes gruesome descriptions of brutal violence, torture, and sexual abuse.

4.5 ( )