Review: Emotionally gripping story about the struggle against corruption
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 10 21, 2012
Ken Brimhall's PLUNDERING THE TILL is a mesmerizing tale of human perseverance in the face of political corruption.  Phil Strias is a teacher in San Miguel, a border town in South Texas.  He's married to Aide, who he met while he was in the Peace Corp in Guatemala.  Their friend Ty Betancourt runs the local newspaper in San Miguel, and he's determined to bring to light the political corruption that runs rampant in the local government.  But fighting corruption is dangerous, as Aide learned when her brother-in-law Xavier, an activist in Guatemala, was murdered for his anti-government protests.  Will Ty's own activism in San Miguel bring him a similar fate?  And will Phil and Aide get caught in the crossfire?The best part of PLUNDERING THE TILL is the almost lyrical quality of Brimhall's prose.  He uses detailed elements of his settings (both San Miguel and Guatemala) to plunge his readers into this unique and complex environment.  He writes about wasps and fire ants and leaf-cutter ants in ways that make them reflective of the plight of our characters.  A frenzied hunt for a pesky opossum seems more like a struggle for human survival.  Brimhall writes about food and clothing and music and the local bars and cantinas, making his readers feel a part of them.  I was captivated from the startAt its core, PLUNDERING THE TILL is about the conflict between reform and revolution.  Phil, more stable and conservative, argues for reform.  He pushes Ty to keep quiet about the corruption he has uncovered, and work instead to get the `politicos' to see the evils of their ways.  "You've got to reform them," Phil argues, "because it's not just one or two politicians, it's the whole damn system."  Ty, however, is the revolutionary.  He has no patience for Phil's views on reformation.  He says, "Sometimes, it's better to just clean house.  Wipe the slate clean."  What ultimately happens calls both views into question, and Brimhall makes it clear that political corruption is a very human weakness.  It has taken over Guatemala and it's taking over San Miguel.  By the end of the novel, I wondered if any place is really safe.PLUNDERING THE TILL is not an action-packed novel; in fact, its pace is deceptively slow.  Brimhall develops his characters over several years, jumping back and forth in time as memories inspire flashbacks, which flesh out both the characters and the story.  In this way, it's a very cinematic novel - so much of the plot is visual and sensory, dependent on vignettes and remembered conversations.  What grips the reader is the level of tension and the depth of emotion Brimhall is able to elicit from the structure of this novel.  It's very well done.In Guatemala, Phil admires a painting of a jaguar "guarding a jungle cave, where eight yellow eyes peered out."  He is transfixed by the painting, which he assumes portrays a mother guarding her young.  By the end of the novel, however, Phil is forced to rethink his interpretation of the painting.  The moment when he realizes what the artist is truly portraying is starkly poignant.  The world we live in is not an easy place, Brimhall says.I recommend PLUNDERING THE TILL to any readers interested in a thoughtful and provocative story about the human struggle to make the world a better place.  This is a novel worth reading.