Calling All Heroes: A Manual for Taking Power - Paperback

by Paco Ignacio Taibo II (Author)

The euphoric idealism of grassroots reform and the tragic reality of revolutionary failure are at the center of this speculative novel that opens with a real historical event. On October 2, 1968, 10 days before the Summer Olympics in Mexico, the Mexican government responds to a student demonstration in Tlatelolco by firing into the crowd, killing more than 200 students and civilians and wounding hundreds more. The Tlatelolco massacre was erased from the official record as easily as authorities washing the blood from the streets, and no one was ever held accountable.

It is two years later and Nestor, a journalist and participant in the fateful events, lies recovering in the hospital from a knife wound. His fevered imagination leads him in the collection of facts and memories of the movement and its assassination in the company of figures from his childhood. Nestor calls on the heroes of his youth--Sherlock Holmes, Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp, and D'Artagnan among them--to join him in launching a new reform movement conceived by his intensely active imagination.

Author Biography

Paco Ignacio Taibo II is the author of 68; Guevara, Also Known as Che; and The Shadow of the Shadow. His biographies of Guevara and Pancho Villa have sold more than one million copies worldwide, and he is the founder and organizer of the annual crime fiction film festival, Semana Negra, held each summer in Spain. He has won numerous international literary awards, including three Hammett Awards and the National History Award from Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History. He lives in Mexico City, Mexico.