{"product_id":"the-city-of-palaces-paperback","title":"The City of Palaces - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eMichael Nava\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the years before the Mexican Revolution, Mexico is ruled by a tiny elite that apes European culture, grows rich from foreign investment, and prizes racial purity. The vast majority of Mexicans, who are native or of mixed native and Spanish blood, are politically powerless and slowly starving to death. Presiding over this corrupt system is Don Porfirio Diaz, the ruthless and inscrutable president of the Republic. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAgainst this backdrop, \u003cem\u003eThe City of Palaces\u003c\/em\u003e opens in a Mexico City jail with the meeting of Miguel Sarmiento and Alicia Gavilan. Miguel is a principled young doctor, only recently returned from Europe but wracked by guilt for a crime he committed as a medical student ten years earlier. Alicia is the spinster daughter of an aristocratic family. Disfigured by smallpox, she has devoted herself to working with the city's destitute. This unlikely pair--he a scientist and atheist and she a committed Christian--will marry. Through their eyes and the eyes of their young son, Jos , readers follow the collapse of the old order and its bloody aftermath. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe City of Palaces\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e is a sweeping novel of interwoven lives: Miguel and Alicia; Jos , a boy as beautiful and lonely as a child in a fairy tale; the idealistic Francisco Madero, who overthrows Diaz but is nevertheless destroyed by the tyrant's political system; and Miguel's cousin Luis, shunned as a \"sodomite.\" A glittering mosaic of the colonial past and the wealth of the modern age, \u003cem\u003eThe City of Palaces\u003c\/em\u003e is a story of faith and reason, cathedrals and hovels, barefoot street vendors and frock-coated businessmen, grand opera and silent film, presidents and peasants, the living and the dead.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eMichael Nava is the author of an acclaimed series of seven crime novels featuring gay, Mexican-American criminal defense lawyer Henry Rios. The Rios novels have won seven Lambda Literary awards and Nava was called by \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times, \u003c\/i\u003e \"one of our best.\" In 2001, he was awarded the Publishing Triangle's Bill Whitehead Lifetime Achievement Award in LGBT Literature. A native Californian and the grandson of Mexican immigrants, he divides his time between San Francisco and Palm Springs.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 404\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1.2 x 8.5 x 5.5 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e September 08, 2020\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51759865463072,"sku":"9781612941950","price":21.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0974\/9764\/5344\/files\/a19442df863e7b8010aaa373d2bd56b3.webp?v=1780164600","url":"https:\/\/ebocreations.com\/products\/the-city-of-palaces-paperback","provider":"The E-Book Oasis LLC","version":"1.0","type":"link"}