Forgiving Imelda Marcos

Go's timid debut, told through the eyes of the personal driver of former Philippine president Maria Corazon Aquino, explores the limits of forgiveness. Lito Macaraeg, near the end of his life, writes a series of letters to his estranged journalist son, José, offering to share a scoop and hoping for some reconciliation. The letters are centered on a trip Lito takes from Manila to Baguio with Aquino in 1992, shortly after her retirement from office, to meet Imelda Marcos, wife of the dictator Aquino had succeeded after her husband's killing in 1983. Interwoven are stories of Lito's childhood growing up with an often absent father who takes Lito to join a communist village, where he studies under the mysterious leader Ka Noel, as well as Lito's meditations on family, philosophy, and Filipino politics. The novel progresses at a steady pace, unraveling the mystery behind Aquino's motive to meet Marcos, initially unknown to Lito, and its thematic links to Lito's father's quest to avenge his mother's death. Though Go evokes the country's messy recent history, the promising premise is bogged down by overly didactic narration and strained prose--"Humor, I guess, is a kind of laxative--prying loose the most constipated of people," Lito muses. Go shows potential, but this one misses the mark. (June)

A deathbed confession opens into a journey through the history of the Philippines and a nuanced exploration of deep spiritual questions. From a hospital bed where he is suffering complications from kidney surgery, Angelito Macaraeg begins a letter to his estranged son. Lito insists that he simply intends to tell "a good story"--something that might be useful for his son's career as an American journalist. However, the deeper Lito delves into his memories, the more apparent becomes his struggle to make peace with the past. As Lito tells the story of his youth in the Philippines, he recounts his mother's murder, his father's frequent disappearances, a troubling experience in the mountains at a Communist camp run by a retired "magical" priest, the experience of falling in love with his son's mother and the circumstances that led to their estrangement. He also relives his formative experiences as a chauffeur for Corazon Aquino, who led the People Power Revolution of 1986 and later became president of the Philippines after her husband's assassination. At the center of Lito's reckoning with the past is a secret meeting between Mrs. Aquino and Imelda Marcos, the wife of dictator Ferdinand Marcos, whose extravagant lifestyle earned her the unofficial title "the Lady of the Thousand Shoes." There is something almost Kierkegaard-ian in the way Go weaves together fictional narrative and nuanced explorations of forgiveness, redemption, guilt, and commitment to one's ideals. His attention to historical detail breathes life into the novel's philosophical inquiry, which avoids didacticism while striking at the heart of some of the most pressing questions of the human condition. Despite its often dramatic subject matter, Go's narrative burns slowly, gracing the novel with an understated yet profound power. A tender meditation on the unseen moments that shape history and the human spirit. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.