Bitten

After escaping from the scene of a shooting at a Blues club in Chicago that she instigated, Cressid seeks haven in Panajachel, a bohemian tourist town on the shore of Lake Atitlan in Guatemala. She ends up working for a German artist who believes he is the Antichrist. Within the insular world of the artist’s megalomaniacal fantasies, the civil war raging in the highlands seems a world away, yet a love affair draws her into a confluence of high art, drugs and religious fanaticism that underlies the political conflict. Anu Keene’s impeccably researched novel reveals truths about the United States involvement in the catastrophic events of the coup d’etat and subsequent civil war in Guatemala about which few Americans are aware. She has a flair for story telling that weaves tension, mystery, and romance with a comic edge, unique to historical fiction. Cressid, in whose voice the story is told, does not know that meeting the brilliant and enigmatic Arachne in a cheap hotel in Guatemala City would unleash a series of events that would change her life completely; most importantly, leading her to Panajachel and an encounter with Carlos, a guerrilla leader with whom she falls deeply in love, enmeshing her in circumstances beyond her control. Keene’s characters are as genuine as they are extraordinary. Among them are the enormous and intimidating white-robed Omma, the self-proclaimed Antichrist; the Reverend, a self-assured and vigilant American missionary; and Ichabod, Omma’s duplicitous poker-playing monk. There is Alejandro, the charming and wealthy socialite who manages the Sylvan Art Gallery and harbors a dark secret; Sisco, the sardonic heroin addict who is Alejandro’s bodyguard and man Friday; and Cressid’s loyal friend Lusedro, whose life was transformed after almost drowning in a vat of mayonnaise. The contrasting themes of tender poetic love and brooding hatred, loyalty and treachery, idyllic natural beauty and the ravages of war make Bitten an unforgettable experience.