Our apartment in Mexico City is tastefully furnished with comfortable seating, gentle lighting, and numerous bookshelves containing a wide variety of books in Spanish and in English. Titles range from Lecciones de Dermatología, Maria Mariposita (a children’s picture book), and Spanish the Fun and Easy Way, as well as novels by Isabel Allende and Paulo Coelho.
My eye was drawn to an orange cover with the title, Kill the Lion, by Jorge Ibargüengoitia. There was a note written inside the dust cover that read, in part, “This is my favourite Mexican author and one of his best books.” When better to read a Mexican author’s “best book” than now, while I’m in Mexico City?
The note promised it would tackle the topic of political corruption on a small (fictional) Latin American island, which sounded potentially grave and thought provoking (as with Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder), but after the first couple of pages I realized this was going to be something different. I was in for an entertaining bit of satire. Set in the early 20th century, a president seeks to change the law to allow himself a lifetime term office after having had his opposing candidate killed. In return, the opposing party plots to assassinate him and fails spectacularly, over and over.
Both sad and funny, this book pairs well with chips and guac and a mezcal margarita.
