Thorough, engrossing summary and analysis of Guatemalan Bishop Juan Gerardi's death in 1998. In the forefront of the civil-rights movement in Guatemala, 66-year-old Gerardi had been celebrating the release of a four-volume, 1,400-page account of government-sponsored murder and other atrocities over a period of four decades. Later that same week, he lay dead in the garage of the parish house, his head bashed and bloodied. Better known as a novelist, Goldman (The Divine Husband, 2004, etc.) is also a long-time journalist; he covered the bishop's death for the New Yorker, never imagining at the time that he would be devoting much of the next eight years to the case. And what a case, with a cast of heavies and heroes worthy of the richest novel or film: archetypal fat-cat, blood-soaked military officers; devoted, underpaid public servants; frightened witnesses begging for protection; risk-taking journalists; and cold assassins (both named and unknown) who hurled the brains of their victims into the faces of onlookers and dismembered the brother of one of the prosecutors. A homeless man who turned out to be a former soldier trained in intelligence served as a key witness for the prosecution. A priest was also involved-perhaps as part of a ring of thieves, perhaps as host of a homosexual pleasure dome-and even this priest's dog became a major player. Goldman presents unscrupulous lackeys in the government and in the press who endeavored to discredit the truth-tellers and whistle-blowers. Readers will find themselves as overwhelmed as the author was by complexity and confusion of acronyms, agencies and multiple levels in the justice system. Ultimately, some heads rolled-but were they the rightheads? The only ones?First-rate research and reporting on the darkness of hearts. First printing of 50,000. Agent: Amanda Urban/ICM
Becoming by turns a little bit Columbo, Jason Bourne and Seymour Hersh, Goldman gives us the anatomy of a crime while opening a window to a misunderstood neighboring country that is flirting with anarchy. More, he offers an overdue indictment of brutal war criminals who were not just behind the killing, but also contributed to a generation of atrocities . . . Goldman’s intricate and insightful reporting of the crime and the trial recalls that of Gabriel Garcia Márquez in News of a Kidnapping.”—Carolyn Curiel, New York Times
“Both a horrifying exposé and a triumphant tale of justice . . . [Goldman] employs a blend of literary prose and factual reportage to keep readers engrossed in a complex tale involving dozens of characters, a thicket of deception and constantly shifting versions of events. He zooms in like a detective on tiny forensic details, scrutinizing casual comments and wisps of evidence until they begin to make sense . . . The Art of Political Murder is a passionate cry of outrage that should be read and passed on by anyone who believes, as Goldman proves here, that truth is always more improbable than fiction.”—Pamela Constable, Washington Post
“The Art of Political Murder is both a page-turner and a searing indictment of a corrosive brand of politics that has overwhelmed a nation . . . In these dark times, Goldman offers a rare gift: a reason for hope, a story about the limits of impunity, an improbable and inspiring case study of success.” —Daniel Alarcón, San Francisco Chronicle
“Passionate and stunningly researched . . . [Goldman] is after more than a crime. His book portrays the hysterical confusion, the dark fog that power—corrupt, ruthless and enduring—can impose on a society, choking its instincts, blinding its sight and rendering truth not only hard to find but hard to distinguish even if it is found.”—Richard Eder, New York Times
“One of our hemisphere’s finest writers has done it again. This magisterial book . . . is a marvelous chimera of reportage, history, autobiography but also a riveting whodunit, all rendered with Goldman’s trademark intelligence, compassion and verve. Goldman details how—through war, corruption, impunity, blackmail, silence and murder—a country's soul can be brought to the brink of extinction. And how—through faith, perseverance, sacrifice, courage, always courage—it can be brought back to the light. Devastating, gripping, irresistible.” —Junot Diaz, author of The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
“Francisco Goldman is a wonderful writer and this is an extremely important book.”—Salman Rushdie
“This is an impressive book. Goldman has focused his superb novelist’s talents—compassion, precision, muscularity, great thoroughness and an instinct for the exotique—on modern-day Guatemala’s ineradicable crime against itself. This remarkable book would seem not to remind us of ourselves, yet somehow it does.” —Richard Ford, author of The Lay of the Land and Independence Day
“With his novels, Francisco Goldman has already made extraordinary contributions to modern literature. Now, he has written a compelling and important piece of investigative journalism. Like of all Goldman’s writings, The Art of Political Murder is a work of unique moral acuity and masterful storytelling; but he has done much more than weave us a fine tale. This is a real-life whodunit, a murder conspiracy which lays bare the poisonous heart of politics and power in contemporary Guatemala. In the story of the murder of Bishop Gerardi, Goldman is not only our writer, but our trustworthy detective.”—Jon Lee Anderson, author of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life
“A powerful detective story with a labyrinthine plot . . . Goldman brilliantly reconstructs both the story of how the bishop was killed and the murderous history of military violence that he courageously opposed .”—Aryeh Neier, New York Review of Books
“Bishop Juan Gerardi directed the investigation into the Guatemalan terror. Prohibited history: military power gave the order for silence and forgetting. One night in the spring of 1998, the bishop published the results of the investigation. Two nights later, he was found lying in his blood, his skull shattered by blows from a brick. A gigantic international operation was launched to disguise the crime and safeguard the Untouchable impunity of the authors of the murder and two hundred thousand murders more. This book by Francisco Goldman is the irrefutable response to the dirty work of the specialists in misleading public opinion.”—Eduardo Galeano, author of Voices in Time
“Some stories are inscribed deep in the pith of the world, awaiting only the coming of their chosen teller to set them forth. Such is the tale of Bishop Juan Gerardi, the beloved chistoso—or joker—who plumbed the depths of Guatemala’s genocidal darkness and found himself finally engulfed by it. Gerardi’s fate was to serve as the bringer of terrible truths and now he has been succeeded in that sacred role by novelist Francisco Goldman, who offers an unforgettable portrait—not only of one society corrupted to its heart by fear, lies and terror but of the insinuating, terrifying ways of power itself. In The Art of Political Murder, Goldman has written his greatest novel—except that every word on these pages happens to be true. This is an essential book.” —Mark Danner, author of The Massacre at El Mozote: A Parable of the Cold War
“The Art of Political Murder… exemplifies flawless investigative journalism. A fantastic detective, ….Goldman effortlessly merges background information with character, gets the real scoop, and somehow never loses the reader…Along the lines of Honor Thy Father and In Cold Blood, this is a work of nonfiction that can be read as a novel, even a mystery novel…However, it does something I don’t think a novel could have done in its stead: instigate immediate political change.” —Jesse Tangen-Mills, Bookslut.com
“In this painstakingly reported and passionately-told story of a notorious murder conspiracy and the ruthless forces behind it, novelist Francisco Goldman offers us far more than a classic portrait of political corruption in a small central American country. This is human depravity and heroism on a mythic scale, ever more terrifying and timeless for being true.” —Charles Siebert, author of A Man After His Own Heart
“A grimly satisfying, finely honed detective story . . . Goldman takes us deeper than any book has ever gone into the criminal pathologies of contemporary Latin America, with its mara gangs, prison riots, drug networks, and political putrefaction . . . [recounting] the murder as coolly as a coroner.” —Roger Atwood, Boston Globe
“Gripping . . . A tour de force, not just for [Goldman’s] reportorial tenacity . . . but because his novelist’s eye and his deep understanding of Guatemalan society take you places no other reporter could: inside the death squads; inside the world of political assassination; inside the gangs and prisons; and out among the legions of psychotic, traumatized, unbalanced, underemployed veterans who are the perpetrators of so much of Guatemala’s crime.” —Peter Canby, The Nation
“The Art of Political Murder is journalism by genre; a searing, gripping account of the 1998 murder of Catholic Bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera and the winding, perilous investigation that followed it. Yet like Goldman’s earlier novels, this book engraves itself in a reader’s memory not only for the story it tells—riveting, horrific and oddly inspiring—but also for its nuanced portrayal of a society where violence, fear and moral corrosion have long outlived the conflict that once sustained them . . . an extraordinarily compelling read. Painstakingly, and at no small personal risk, Goldman spent nearly eight years tracking down nearly all of the crime’s key players and untangling thousands of strands of contradictory evidence. Yet he has distilled this tangled mass of information to its dramatic essence, sustaining the suspense of a crime novel in order to compel his readers to understand the complexities of Guatemala’s violent peace.”—Brodwyn Fischer, Chicago Tribune
“First-rate research and reporting on the darkness of hearts.”—Kirkus (starred review)
“Drawing on a wealth of sources, including interviews, declassified documents and court records, his meticulously researched book is an impressive organizational achievement, as well as a vital moral accounting. Goldman … invests this eye-opening account with a layer of personal reflection.” —Publishers Weekly
“The Art of Political Murder compels us partly because it swings a door open onto the working guts of state-sanctioned violence . . . Here is a real tale of church machinations and government corruption. If, like me, you have not given the Tennessee-size nation an hour of your attention, The Art of Political Murder is reason to start.” —Karen Long, Cleveland Plain Dealer
“An impeccably researched account of the Gerardi case that reads like a thriller . . . as enthralling as it is filled with terror.” —Carlos Rodríquez Martorell, NY Daily News
"A thriller that crashes through barriers of genre . . . Reading the book is to enter a surreal, and very dark labyrinth, a 300-page ride of relentless fear . . . [Goldman's] book is at once awe-inspiring and disheartening: He has perfected the art of nonfiction by explaining how Guatemala has perfected the art of political murder.”—Silvana Paternostro, BOMB
”An impressive achievement in investigative reporting . . . The Art of Political Murder is witness to the struggle of a small, courageous group of activists to bring the processes of a democratic judicial system to bear on one of the most corrupt and violent modern cultures in the Western hemisphere . . . Goldman’s book is, in large part, [the Untouchables’] story. The tension and suspense are brutally real and the resolution far from certain. The Art of Political Murder is history with a fast pulse and a wary eye.”—Katherine Dunn, The Oregonian
“Goldman spools out clues to the murder like a crime writer, uncovering a terrifying conspiracy that implicates powerful figures in the military, the government, and the media.”—The New Yorker
“Goldman is a journalist’s journalist, and the amount of investigative legwork involved in producing this book, and the risks thereof, is staggering. This is an impressive book in its breadth.”—Rocky Mountain News
“Goldman has a storyteller’s instinct . . . the work . . . provides a detailed and disturbing insight into a lingering national psyche in which the limits of power, corruption and violence remain difficult to measure.”—Jack Broom, Seattle Times
