Aug 13

Aug 13 The President and the Frog

Author: Carolina De Robertis
Publisher: Knopf
Goodreads | The StoryGraph

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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

Cover Description

From the acclaimed author of Cantoras comes an incandescent novel—political, mystical, timely, and heartening—about the power of memory, and the pursuit of justice.

At his modest home on the edge of town, the former president of an unnamed Latin American country receives a journalist in his famed gardens to discuss his legacy and the dire circumstances that threaten democracy around the globe. Once known as the Poorest President in the World, his reputation is the stuff of myth: a former guerilla who was jailed for inciting revolution before becoming the face of justice, human rights, and selflessness for his nation. Now, as he talks to the journalist, he wonders if he should reveal the strange secret of his imprisonment: while held in brutal solitary confinement, he survived, in part, by discussing revolution, the quest for dignity, and what it means to love a country, with the only creature who ever spoke back—a loud-mouth frog.

As engrossing as it is innovative, vivid, moving, and full of wit and humor, The President and the Frog explores the resilience of the human spirit and what is possible when danger looms. Ferrying us between a grim jail cell and the president's lush gardens, the tale reaches beyond all borders and invites us to reimagine what it means to lead, to dare, and to dream.

TL;DR Review

The President and the Frog is a quirky, funny, moving, and ultimately hopeful little novel. It won’t be for everyone, but I really liked it.

For you if: You like literary fiction, historical fiction, and fables.

Full Review

First, thank you to Knopf for the gifted copy of this book! Like many others, I read and loved Cantoras, and so I jumped at the chance to read Caronlina De Robertis’ next novel. If you’re hoping for a similar story in The President and the Frog, you might be disappointed — the stories are very different — but her gorgeous writing and piercing insight into humanity is absolutely here.

Part historical fiction, part fable, The President and the Frog is about a man whose character is a fictionalized version of José Mujica, the former president of Uruguay. As he welcomes yet another reporter into his home, he finds himself ruminating on a story he’s never, in his years as an open book, told anyone: the visits from a talking, prescient frog during his solitary confinement as a political prisoner. We flash backward and forward in time, between the frog urging him to dig deep to find The One Thing, and the reporter who’s nervous about the global ramifications of climate change and the 2016 US election. What emerges is a story that offers a grounded form of hope and optimism in the face of grim reality.

The middle felt a little slow for me, but that’s because I’m not the kind of person to seek out historical fiction for the sake of the genre, and I know very little about the political history of Uruguay. I imagine that someone with a personal connection to the country or an interest in history in general would feel much differently. Still, I loved the beginning and the end of this book enough to have really liked this book overall. De Robertis has written us a funny, quirky, moving, and memorable tale that reminds us not only what it means to not only fight for the good, but also the struggle and importance of reminding ourselves why.

Finally: De Robertis narrated her own audiobook, which I listened to as I read. I really believe this added a lot to my reading experience — her rendition of the frog, in all his smart-ass wisdom, brought him to life in a way that I can’t imagine could have happened on the page alone.

If you like literary fiction, historical fiction, and fables (what a combo!), pick this one up.