Hot Country (Used)

By (author): Robert Olen Butler. This is Shiva Naipaul's novel (UK title "A Hot Country," US title "Love and Death in a Hot Country," 1983/1984), set in the fictional South American country of Cuyama as it slides toward dictatorship after independence. It centers on the crumbling marriage of Aubrey St. Pierre, guilt-ridden heir to a family fortune built on slavery and colonialism, and his emotionally withdrawn wife Dina, who retreats into local superstition rather than share his fervent left-wing politics. A visiting English journalist, Alex, observes the couple as their private disintegration mirrors the nation's, in a novel that ends with little hope for either.