Joel Hirst
Lords of Misrule
Literary Fiction
Aliuf Ag Albachar, born into the noble Tuareg ancestry, is just thirteen when he crests a dune with his mother, looks down from atop his camel onto the ancient fabled city of Timbuktu, and contemplates the day it will finally be his. Unfortunately Aliuf has no idea that misfortune will soon force him to flee across the desert away from everything he has known and toward something greater than he ever imagined. Propelled by restlessness and the indomitable spirit of his clan, Aliuf bravely pushes onward through a dangerous coming-of-age journey that leads him through a barren land. While following his heart through the vast expanses of the Sahara, he becomes a student enthralled with the great works of Islam's golden age, a warlord who leads his army of angry men through the colossal dunes of the Sahara to battle the enemy, and finally an Islamic judge who makes a monumental discovery that shakes the foundation of his beliefs and forever shapes his destiny. Lords of Misrule is an epic tale of redemption, forbidden love, and atonement against all odds as a young man is led on a path of enlightenment across the Sahara where he ultimately must face the consequences of his decisions. |
The Burning of San Porfirio: Sequel to The Lieutenant of San Porfirio
Literary Fiction
What happens when the revolution burns out and the magic is gone? Pancho Randelli doesn't know or care. Released from jail to wander the wasteland, he's haunted by the loss of his great love, Susana, and wonders at the fate of his deputy, Carlitos. He fears for the life of his best friend and hopes he has not become just another victim of madness. In desperate search for Carlitos, Pancho begins his quest across the shattered landscape of a broken country. While trailing behind cold tracks and blurry memories, he finds something wholly unexpected: freedom. This is not the case for General Juan Marco Machado, who wallows in power at long last. For him, things are not how he originally imagined. Without magic, all the money and power in the world cannot save the general from downfall and despair. While Pancho may find what he seeks, the general finds nothing but anguish. At the end, neither man will escape the inevitable results of the ideas upon which the revolution advanced, lived for a season only to burn itself out. |
The Lieutenant of San Porfirio
Literary Fiction
Something is afoul in the Revolutionary Socialist Republic of Venezuela. Despite food shortages, blackouts and the terrible violence, El Comandante's iron grip is stronger than ever. Newly decorated Lieutenant Juan Marco Machado lovingly caresses his shiny AK-103 as he thinks about his promotion and what he would be willing to do to defend his revolution, and his position. He is about to find out it's more than he ever would have believed. Doña Esmeralda is in trouble. Ordered to demonstrate her solidarity for the revolution and open her colonial mansion (in which she carefully protects her dead husband's ghost) to the barrio dwellers, she decides she is left with no choice but to plot a counterrevolution. Meanwhile, Freddy, an American high school student is propelled by his parents to attend a socialist youth summit in Venezuela, pitting him against Pancho Randelli, a freedom activist and leader of the struggling student movement. And so the fates of four people are about to be intertwined within a country plunged into revolution. The Lieutenant of San Porfirio is the compelling story about four people seeking to find themselves under the chilling pall of socialism. People from different backgrounds and across the hemisphere will find something to love, as well as something deeply disturbing, in this new magical realism twist on a South American classic genre, the dictator novel. |
The Unraveling
Literary Fiction
When President Ebenezer Fudge unleashes the Frosting, it is but one more indignity inflicted on a terminally ailing world. War, famine and disease have ravaged entire continents. Controlled and exploited by fractured governments, opportunistic politicians and shadowy corporations, once-prosperous societies languish in a welter of failed hopes and shattered ideals. Across this benighted landscape wanders a cast of refugees, set adrift from their homes by one calamity or another and united only in a forlorn hope of something better. To their ears come rumors of a place somewhere far off across the sea, a sanctuary of sorts where life is lived according to law in the halcyon glow of bygone days. In this last bastion of civilization music still plays, literature and the arts, extinguished elsewhere, continued to flourish, and bounty is coaxed from rejuvenated hillsides and fields. Yet even this utopia is in danger, riven from within by moral questions and threatened from without by a greedy world. In dense, richly layered prose, this novel tells the story of a future not far removed from the here and now. The Unraveling speaks lucidly and forthrightly about events that are taking place before our eyes. It is insightful, thought-provoking and frighteningly prescient. Available at Barnes and Noble. (e-book and paperback coming soon) |