The Feast of the Goat
Mario Vargas Llosa
 The novel's narrative is divided into three distinct strands. One is centred on Urania Cabral, a fictional Dominican character; another deals with the conspirators involved in Trujillo's assassination; and the third focuses on Trujillo himself. The novel alternates between these storylines, and also jumps back and forth from 1961 to 1996, with frequent flashbacks to periods earlier in Trujillo's regime. The Feast of the Goat begins with the return of Urania to her hometown of Santo Domingo, a city which had been renamed Ciudad Trujillo during Trujillo's time in power. This storyline is largely introspective and deals with Urania's memories and her inner turmoil over the events preceding her departure from the Dominican Republic thirty-five years earlier. Urania escaped the crumbling Trujillo regime in 1961 by claiming she planned to study under the tutelage of nuns in Michigan. In the following decades, she becomes a prominent and successful New York lawyer. She finally returns to the Dominican Republic in 1996, on a whim, and finds herself compelled to confront her father and elements of her past she has long ignored. As Urania speaks to her ailing father, Agustin Cabral, she recalls more and more of the anger and disgust that led to her thirty-five years of silence. Urania retells her father's descent into political disgrace, and the betrayal that forms the crux of both Urania's storyline and that of Trujillo himself. The second and third storylines are set in 1961, in the weeks prior to and following Trujillo's assassination on the 30th of May. Each assassin has his own background story, explaining his motivation for his involvement in the assassination plot. Each has been wronged by Trujillo and his regime, by torture and brutality, or through assaults on their pride, their religious faith, their morality, or their loved ones. Vargas Llosa weaves the tale of the men as memories recalled on the night of Trujillo's death, as the conspirators lie in wait for "The Goat". Interconnected with these stories are the actions of other famous Trujillistas of the time; Joaquín Balaguer, the puppet president, Johnny Abbes García, the merciless head of the Military Intelligence Service (SIM), and various others&mdash;some real, some composites of historical figures, and some purely fictional. The third storyline is concerned with the thoughts and motives of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina himself. The chapters concerning The Goat recall the major events of his time, including the slaughter of thousands of Dominican Haitians in 1937. They also deal with the Dominican Republic's tense international relationships during the Cold War, especially with the United States under the presidency of John F. Kennedy, and Cuba under Castro. Vargas Llosa also speculates upon Trujillo's innermost thoughts and paints a picture of a man whose physical body is failing him. Trujillo is tormented by incontinence and impotence; and this storyline intersects with Urania's narrative when it is revealed that Urania was sexually assaulted by Trujillo. He is unable to achieve an erection with Urania, and in frustration and anger he rapes her with his hands. This event is the core of Urania's shame, and her hatred towards her father. In addition, it is the cause of Trujillo's repeated anger over the "anemic little bitch" that witnessed his impotence and emotion, and the reason he is en route to sleep with another girl on the night of his assassination. In the novel's final chapters, the three storylines intersect with increasing frequency. The tone of these chapters is especially dark as they deal primarily with the horrific torture and death of the assassins at the hands of the SIM, the failure of the coup, the rape of Urania, and the concessions made to Trujillo's most vicious supporters allowing them to enact their horrific revenge on the conspirators and then escape the country. The book ends as Urania prepares to return home, determined this time to keep in touch with her family back on the island.