ILUSTRADO

William Dufris performs a feat of wonder in a novel that skips swiftly from topic to topic, intertwining the life stories of Filipinos Miguel Syjuco and his mentor, famed author Crispin Salvador. Syjuco investigates Salvador's suspicious death and the disappearance of his long-awaited, unfinished, and possibly abandoned manuscript. When speaking lines from Salvador's books, journals, and letters, Dufris knows just when to lay on an overdramatic tone that is reminiscent of old-time radio announcers. For Syjuco’s bitter and cynical views, he adopts a jaded tone. The listener is never confused about the source of each utterance—whether it’s the biographer's notes, published novels, eavesdropped gossip, blogs, or Syjuco's personal history. Pieces of these puzzles form the author's life through literary fragments and, in addition, trace 150 years of Philippine history, contrasting the islands' ravished present with their illustrious past. A.W. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine [Published: AUGUST 2011]