Taibo II, Paco Ignacio

New York. 1994. July 1994. St Martin's Press. Advance Reading Copy. Very Good in Wrappers . 0312109873. Translated from the Spanish by Laura C. Dail. 378 pages. paperback. Jacket illustration by Marty Blake. Jacket design by Henry Sene Yee. keywords: Literature Translated Mexico Latin America . FROM THE PUBLISHER - This is the first English translation of a major literary novel by Paco Ignacio Taibo II, whose previous appearances in this country have been this leading Mexican author's crime novels. The ‘Four Hands' are those of two world-ranging journalists, one Mexican and one American. It is these two men who provide the initially improbable links between such disparate elements of Taibo's amazing novel as Stan Laurel's witnessing the assassination of Pancho Villa; the disinformation operation of an anonymous group in New York who approach their dingy office up a fire escape; the discovery of Leon Trotsky's notes for the crime novel he was writing when he was murdered in Mexico; the stupefying thesis proposals of graduate Elena Jordan; an episode in the Contra war in Nicaragua; and the Spanish miner's takeover of a coal mine in the thirties. These themes and others, like the voices of a Bach fugue, appear and disappear and reappear, gradually weaving together into an intricate whole without losing their separate identities. FOUR HANDS is a funny, dazzling, and exuberant work that only this author could have created. Originally published in Spanish as Cuantro manos, 1990. inventory #20122 ISBN: 0312109873.