Four Hands

A sweeping novel, set primarily in the 1980s but traveling back and forth in time, weaves together at least four different stories set in Mexico, involving Stan Laurel, Houdini, U.S. spooks, and a host of other fascinating characters.

Deadly tricks of the international spy trade illuminate various tactics of survival, collaboration, disinformation--and the creative process--in this complex tale of journalism and subversion in Latin America. Cycling back and forth in time and through a protean array of distinct narrative voices and points of view, Mexican crime novelist Taibo ( No Happy Ending ) gradually gives shape to a whirlwind of brief fragments from the lives of his diverse characters. These include Leon Trotsky, Stan Laurel and Houdini, each of whom is presented in an unexpected but somehow credible context. The various narrative threads intersect in 1980s Mexico, where Alex, who comes from an obscure intelligence office in New York, orchestrates his masterpiece of deception, a scheme to vilify the Sandinista leadership in Nicaragua; and where two journalists, Julio and Greg, bring their eponymous four hands together to tell the tale. Taibo's prose is rich in metaphor, and his confident, insightful storytelling makes the individual pieces of his novel intriguing long before the connections among them are apparent. Dail's translation does fine justice to the author's colorful, virtuosic narrative.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A complex international scenario of journalism, disinformation, and espionage unfolds through interweaving narratives of fictional characters and historical figures. Greg and Julio, an American and Mexican journalist, respectively, whose ``four hands'' often combine for high-quality investigative stories, are, perhaps, the heroes of this tale. But Alex, the borderline-sane head of the SD (Shit Department), a covert US agency devoted to spreading complex disinformation plots, is an attractive tyrant. His ``Operation Dream of Snow White'' is aimed at discrediting a high-ranking Sandinista. The plan must also satisfy Alex's brilliant sense of the absurd: Alex ``had a Sandinista commander, an astonishing Bulgarian, a Mexican drug dealer, some journalists, an Australian prostitute, a Congress of partisan writers, a murder....'' Taibo (Some Clouds, 1992, etc.) knits further complexities: The story begins when film comedian Stan Laurel witnesses the death of Pancho Villa; a journalistic award Laurel subsequently co-founds with Julio's grandfather will come into play many years later; Greg and Julio are working on a story about Leon Trotsky's recently discovered unfinished detective novel; Houdini visits his therapist (he sees a headless vision of his mother with discomfiting regularity); and chapters such as ``Elena Jordan's Second Rejected Thesis Proposal'' provide hilarious jabs at academia. The Mexican Taibo has been compared to Garc¡a M rquez for both his odd happenings and his mastery of craft. But there is nothing ``magical'' about the odd events and characters included. The novel is only slightly stranger than, say, the Iran-Contra affair, and more closely resembles Joseph Heller's Catch-22. Taibo mercilessly lampoons American imperialism, with all its dirty tricks; the comedic pace rarely slows. But sometimes the prose rises, impassioned, as when it describes the Sandinista revolution. All the while the work sustains diverse, bizarre, and ultimately believable characters. Praise to translator Dail--the rhythms are distinctively American, accurately conveying Taibo's keen view of his northern neighbor's overhanging belly. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

At times reminiscent of Doctorow's work, Four Hands is a glorious documentary-style novel, offbeat and usually comic. Taibo (Some Clouds, LJ 6/1/92) focuses on two 1980s journalists. Both partners and friends, Mexican Julio Fernandez and North American Greg Simon write about politics and revolution for the likes of Mother Jones and Rolling Stone. Interwoven with their stories are strands of fiction and fictionalized nonfiction that span the decades of the 20th century, roaming from the Americas to Europe and back. Other characters include Stan Laurel, Leon Trotsky, and civil engineer and anti-Sandinista Ben Linder. Taibo, who lives in Mexico City, is already well known to Spanish-language readers. This novel belongs in all strong contemporary literature collections.
Mary Margaret Benson, Linfield Coll. Lib., McMinnville, Ore.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Taibo is usually considered a crime writer due to such anarchistic detective novels as No Happy Ending , but even though espionage plays a role here, this hilariously disorienting tale is too slippery for a genre designation. The title refers to lucrative if frequently ludicrous partnerships, such as that of Laurel and Hardy (Stan Laurel plays a key role in this complicated narrative), and the collaboration of the novel's main characters, journalists Greg and Julio. Greg, Jewish and chronically alienated, is the photographer, while Julio, loquacious and sanguine, does most of the writing, although, four-handedly, they manage to crank out articles in both Spanish and English, doubling their earning potential. As they track down their latest story amid the chaos and fervor of Latin American politics, war, gun trading, and drug dealing, they inadvertently parallel Operation Snow White, the goofy, most likely pointless brainchild of a CIA operative named Alex. Taibo's cleverly fractured yet unmistakably pointed plot involves dwarfs both literal and figurative, Houdini, a long-lost manuscript of a mystery written by Trotsky, and wonderfully caustic musings on the cult of information. Taibo ranges all over the map, and we follow, curious and entertained. Donna Seaman