A dictator's body is discovered in his enormous crumbling palace. Revolutionaries burst in and find his rotting corpse in an anarchic tangle of past and present, a present already lost and decayed, a past of almost unimaginable richness in which the palace was crowded with the dictator's ministers, bodyguards, and servants, who kept him precariously balanced in power, and also with the thrive of women and children. The atmosphere is dreamlike - even nightmarish-real, vibrant and sensually exact, and at the same time vague and almost unbelievable.
From this very definite beginning this novel moves round and round - in time, backward, forward, and sideways, in a narrative of remanence. The action takes place in a Latin American country in an advanced state of corruption, anarchy, savagery, and physical exuberance. The time is the modern period, though not specified. An air force is mentioned, a league of Nations exists somewhere. American ambassadors with names like Wilson move in and out and occasionally the Pope sends messages. Dominating the action is the dictator general, at first an almost messianic presence loved by the people, appearing suddenly among the peasants like a vision, walking alone or with a few colleagues, but as a rule going unguarded and unafraid. Then, as his rule tightens, as things become harsher, he becomes more suspicious and frightened and gives out only in a closely guarded car and with a bodyguard, or else he appears on a balcony, a distant, scarcely human figure.
The discovery of a man who is his double makes appearances much easier for him, the double is dressed as people expect the leader to dress, and sent to appear where the leader is expected. When there is an assassination, it is the double, not the leader, who is killed.
This is an extraordinary novel by one of the world's leading writers. Rich, vivid, and brilliantly original. The Autumn of the Patriarch is a masterful work of imagination, narrative and description superbly translated by Gregory Rabassa.