I, Che Guevara

I've studied Che for years now. I was amazed at how realistic this novel is. True it takes place in the future, and Che is long dead, but what Mr. Blackthorn has Che thinking is truly inspiring, and completly on track with what Che might be thinking today.

This book has been an unexpected and special gift for me and has illuminated much of the social-political-economic realities here in the U.S. It is filled with details in the storyline that has helped me to identify the roots of my own cynicism and the deep personal and collective need to get out of it. Although the book started off slow, after awhile I couldn't put it down. Halfway through I learned the author was Gary Hart and my attention somehow intensified. In here is wisdom and a great assist to looking at what are the deeper purposes of life. Yesterday a friend told me about the Greens and directed me to Votenader.com. Suddenly I'm realizing there could well be a "true republic" movement going on around me and I'm needing to turn on. If you just want to get an intimate look at Cuba and the forces it has to contend with, pick up the book and read.

Why couldn't he be this brave and honest about U.S.-Cuba relations WHEN HE WAS IN THE SENATE AND COULD DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT, FOR CRYIN' OUT LOUD? I had been hoping "John Blackthorn" would turn out to be a Latin American author. That would explain the year-2000 delayed-release of a fantasy which is mostly set in 1999. That would explain the subjective, "magical realist" tone of the book, which was a giant relief from the objective, omniscient, slice-of-life, exposition-by-vignette narrative style of most Anglo-American thrillers. That would explain a determinedly un-cynical story which wears its idealism on its sleeve. That would explain the heroism and wisdom shown by the ordinary Cuban people, who are themselves the protagonists of the story. (It would not explain an error in the very first scene, attributing tortillas and tamales to Cuban cuisine, an error which is never repeated again in the book. Was Hart trying to throw us off the trail, maybe make us think his book was written by a Mexican? Tortillas and tamales in Cuba--it's such an obvious error for one who has supposedly visited Cuba as an "emissary," you HAVE to believe it's some kind of clue!) Knowing Gary Hart wrote this otherwise wonderful story just ruins everything. When Hart was in politics, making decisions that affected our lives, what did HE ever do to make his "true republic" a reality? This is kind of like Robert MacNamara admitting, 30 years too late, that Vietnam was a mistake.

I'll be the first to admit that the other review for this book is an epic compared to mine, but i felt the urge to review this book anyways. It was truly a great book, and i found it very interesting to read the whole way through, the whold hiding in the mountains thing was pretty amazing. I hadn't heard about a conneciont between the mafia and the miami exiles before, although with the way "Blackthorn" (i.e. Gary Hart) writes about it, it seemed to me as if he knows his stuff. Anyways, about the book: I would definitely recommend it to anyone with a remote interest in Che, Cuba, or even elections in general. I found out a lot of things i never knew, and to be honest although the cover was what got me interested, it was an extremely well-written book. If you only bought one book this year, it might not be this, but if you got to buy another one this would definitely be it.

In Hollywood, they call it high concept. Here's the pitch: Che Guevara is not dead. Having escaped execution in Bolivia -- don't ask how -- he shows up back in Cuba 30 years later as Ernesto Blanco, just in time for Fidel Castro to abdicate in favor of free elections. Are you with me? Because there's a payoff here.While the old Cuban communists run against the Miami exiles in a dead-on parody of American politics, Guevara/Blanco grabs the balance of power. Merely by sipping coffee (how '90s) in village plazas, the viejo leads a peaceful revolution as a Jeffersonian disciple who teaches radical democracy and falls in love (he's not that viejo) with a washed-up American TV personality.OK, it's a stretch. A pretzel twist -- Che tramping the mountains preaching the gospel of T. Jefferson -- admits the author, John Blackthorn. But as the thrillers go, I, Che Guevara works on most levels. You turn the page. You learn the physical endowments of most of the female characters. Somebody shoots at somebody else (there is even a hot-blooded, curvaceous, ex-Marine, mob-connected hit woman). And, as an unexpected bonus, you get an insider look at the media, pollsters, political hacks and soft-as-George-W.'s-hands money.And when you find out Blackthorn is actually a pseudonym for Gary Hart, the book works on a couple more levels. Is Che a stand-in for Hart, busily serving his own exile? It sounds like Hart, himself a Jeffersonian disciple, come down from his own mountain to offer the truth -- if people would only listen. Of course, Hart is not quite the iconic figure Che has become. For example, in Cuba today, you can get nail clippers with Che's likeness on them. Hart, meanwhile, is a mere footnote to the politics of personal destruction, a prequel to the Clinton drama.Could I, Che Guevara be read as I, Gary Hart?"There's no personal identification," Hart says laughing. He's calling from London and won't say quite what he's doing there. I like that. It's got a spy ring to it. Hart has been a semi-official emissary to Cuba for years, which is how he got the idea for the book. He used the pseudonym -- this is second Blackthorn/Cuba novel -- because he didn't want the Cubans to know he was writing about Cuba. But then, he says, it got to be too Primary Colors for him not to admit to being the author."I'll 'fess up to the philosophy, though," Hart says. "I've been working on the idea for a while -- whether Jefferson's ideas of radical democracy in republican form are applicable to the 21st century."I think it's possible. The two traditional ideologies don't have much persuasiveness, particularly among young people these days. We need some new alternative, beyond Clinton's Third Way. Something with intellectual content, with some serious political philosophy behind it."You shouldn't get the idea that the book is heavy. It's as light as a book can be that uses Plato's Republic as a source."It's an entertainment," says Hart. "Th