El Vago

by Laurence Gonzales

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0689113307
• ISBN13: 9780689113307
• Release Date: January 1983
• Publisher: Atheneum Books
• Length: 309 Pages
• Weight: 2.70 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Clarifying the John D. MacDonald reviews

The duplicate reviews posted in 1997 are one of two quotes from the back jacket cover of this 1983 novel. MacDonald, who died in 1986, was known for his best selling Travis McGee mysteries, some which had settings south of the USA border. The other back jacket blurb was by Oakley Hall, and it reads "I wish I'd had a grandfather like Laurence Gonzales's to tell me these tales of Pancho Villa, but the next best thing is the novel itslef. Gonzales chauffeurs us marvelously well through the Mexican labyrinths of battle and betrayal. The story is told in flashbacks, which begin chronologically in 1894, by a fictional foster brother of the Mexican bandit/revolutionary.

John D. MacDonald comments, "I liked it very much!"

John D. MacDonald said, "El Vago is a solid novel. Many of the scenes are vivid and remarkable. I do not claim to be any kind of expert on Mexico and Mexicans, but I really do feel that this novel captures that strange Mexican madness--violence, fatalism, ironic humor, and the desperate search for some salvageable honor. I liked it very much."