The Love Parade
SynopsisPlot
Following the chance discovery of certain documents, a historian sets out to unravel the mystery of a murder committed in his childhood Mexico City home in the autumn of 1942. Mexico had just declared war on Germany, and its capital had recently become a colorful cauldron of the most unusual and colorful of the European ilk: German communists, Spanish republicans, Trotsky and his disciples, Balkan royalty, agents of the most varied secret services, opulent Jewish financiers, and more. As the historian-turned-detective begins his investigation, he introduces us to a rich and eccentric gallery of characters, the media of politics, the newly installed intelligentsia, and beyond.
Story
About this book
A historian comes across old documents that pull him back to a murder committed in his childhood home in Mexico City in the autumn of 1942. Mexico had just declared war on Germany, and the capital was filling with displaced Europeans: German communists, Spanish republicans, followers of Trotsky, Balkan royalty, agents of several secret services, and wealthy Jewish financiers.
Sergio Pitol frames the book as a detective story, using the historian's inquiry to move through the social layers of wartime Mexico City. The investigation introduces a wide cast of eccentric figures from politics, the press, and the newly settled intellectual circles, each with private motives and ties to the upheaval abroad. Personal memory and documented history sit side by side in the telling.
The central tension lies between the boy who lived in that house in 1942 and the adult now working with documents and interviews. Political allegiances brought from Europe, wartime alliances, and the interests of Mexican officials and reporters all shape what can be learned. The house, ordinary to the narrator as a child, becomes the fixed point of the search.
