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A Faraway Country
By: Frank Hilaire
Paperback: 520 pages
Publisher: Pacal Press (September 27, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0979748909
ISBN-13: 978-0979748905
Book Description
It's early '95, and from across cultures and untold miles, PK heeds
psychical prompts from a tiny Maya girl and heads south in an old Dodge van.
Along the way, flashbacks revisit his 11 years in prison, an escape from Folsom, and how, upon release in '70, he finds employment as an "agent of Mexico's dedicated guerrillas." Now decades later, we follow our "two-fisted killer man" to Chiapas, to mysterious Maya Mexico.
Against a backdrop of Zapatistas (EZLN) locked in a mortal struggle with NAFTA and an amoral government, we meet immensely memorable characters, among them: otherlaw Gat, footless Vietnam vet; China-eyed Ana, psychedelic sorceress; flamboyant Biga, tormented Maya street queen; beautiful Nichim, slave girl; Wiz-wiz, Zapatista warrior woman; we follow the Fills-seekers of Atlantis and 60ish ex-pats-as they dodge the $30,000 "official adoptions racket" to legally become the "birth" parents of baby Dream: cost-$12..
With "long-term hard-timer" PK as guide, A FARAWAY COUNTRY
probes tinderbox Maya-Mexico while offering a troubling view of Mexico as a
viciously apartheid culture, a deftly-manipulated penitentiary to millions,
and just another US-propped failed state.
About the Author
Hilaire's edgy characters might be reflections of his own
recklessness. At an early age, he approached life's edge-and jumped. In
freefall, he spent his teens in California reformatories, including
legendary PSI, arguably the toughest juvenile prison on earth; by 17, he was
packed off to the Big House for 11 years. In '68, youngest con on the yard,
he escaped "escape-proof" Folsom Prison. Recaptured, he wrote a novel (THANATOS,
EP Dutton, 1971) which facilitated a second "escape" in 1970. But by '75,
still in freefall, he'd touched on FBI wanted posters for various alleged
offenses, including neutrality violations-specifically: flying a
weapons-for-weed WW II bomber for Mexican guerrillas. After surrendering in
'78, and subsequent findings of not guilty on all charges, he wrote a second
novel (TRAFICANTE, St Martins Press, 1980). In '95, prodded by "the ghost of
an old pal," he arrived in high-octane Zapatista country
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