Dear Future

This is the story of a village family in a poor unnamed South American republic that touches on the inter-racial mix of the people and the dirty politics of the leaders. Substitute the races with tribes and the story could have taken place in any tropical African country.

It is written as a series of loosely-connected stories, beginning with the accidental cutting in the head of one of two boys whose parents have left behind (Red Head). No one knows where the father is. Later we learn that the mother had been employed by the President as campaign secretary and sent to England to cook up some voters for the President. In the third part of the book we read about her and the three sons she had with him and the love affair with a Pakistani that didn’t quite work out.

The first and second parts of the book occurred in the village named Ariel. The boy’s head healed. His uncle Wheels ran a bike race and narrowly lost. Another uncle Bounce beat an unbeatable wrestler working for the President’s campaign, and the President’s supporters attacked the family in the night. Apparently, the two boys were killed or seriously wounded in the attack. Then there were more insight into the political campaign tactics for the election. The book ended with a series of thoughts from Red Head either from the land of dreams or the land of the dead.

July 16, 2015. Review initially written in 1998. Novel first published in 1996. Picture source: Goodreads.com.