Thanks are due to many helpful people who contributed their knowledge and insight in the preparation of this book. At the top of the list is my friend and invaluable guide Berta Ramona Thayer, a lawyer and journalist whose universal access to people in all ranks of Panamanian society made my visits there both productive and delightful. I would also like to offer special thanks to Mario Rognoni, General Noriega’s former spokesman and one of Central America’s great raconteurs; Roberto Eisenmann, founder of La Prensa; Guillermo Sánchez Borbón, whose outspoken and wonderfully mischievous columns for that paper helped bring Noriega down; José Blandón, who was Noriega’s chief political adviser; Roberto Díaz Herrera; former president Ernesto Pérez Balladares; former vice president Ricardo Arias Calderón; and Mayín Correa, a brave journalist who became mayor of Panama City. In addition, I am happy to acknowledge the debt I owe to Aquilino Boyd, Pablo Thalassinos, Carlos Duque, Daniel Delgado, Escolastico Calvo, Ricardo Bermudez, Dr. Gioconda Gaudiano, Pedro Rognoni, Fernando Quesada, Lucho Delgado, and Manuel Solís Palma, each of whom afforded me generous amounts of time and precious observations about their country and the complicated man who held it in his grasp.
Several books were also extremely helpful to my understanding of Noriega and Panama; in particular I point to Kevin Buckley’s Panama, Frederick Kempe’s Divorcing the Dictator, John Dinges’s Our Man in Panama, Roberto Díaz Herrera’s Panama: Política y magia; R. M. Koster and Guillermo Sánchez’s In the Time of the Tyrants, José de Jesús Martínez’s La Invasión de Panamá, Steve Albert’s The Case Against the General, Mayín Correa’s Sin concesiones, and Luis Murillo’s encyclopedic The Noriega Mess. General Noriega wrote an autobiography with Peter Eisner titled America’s Prisoner, which presents his version of events. Stephanie C. Kane’s delightful book on the Choco, The Phantom Gringo Boat, helped me understand that culture.
In this country I was assisted by David Adams, Ricardo Ainslie, John Burnett, and Mac Chapin. Several friends read the manuscript at various stages and offered their guidance, including Lee Aitken, Matthew Fox, Nancy Hardin, Jan McInroy, James Magnuson, and Wendy Weil. I am also grateful to David Rosenthal and Geoffrey Kloske at Simon & Schuster for their valuable editorial guidance. Stephen Harrigan’s counsel has always been wise and generous, and his friendship has lit the lonely path of the writer’s life for nearly twenty years. Finally I must acknowledge my wife, Roberta, whose love and good humor have sustained me through many uncertain times. For all the help I’ve been given by these friends and colleagues, I say thanks and thanks again.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lawrence Wright was born in Oklahoma City in 1947 and reared in Dallas, Texas. He is a graduate of Tulane University and the American University in Cairo. He is a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of five previous books of nonfiction: City Children, Country Summer (1979), In the New World: Growing Up with America, 1960–1984 (1988), Saints & Sinners (1993), Remembering Satan (1994), and Twins: And What They Tell Us About Who We Are (1998). This is his first novel. He has won the National Magazine Award for Reporting as well as the John Bartlow Martin Award for Public Interest Magazine Journalism. In 1992 he received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. For the past twenty years he has made his home in Austin, Texas.
ALSO BY LAWRENCE WRIGHT
City Children: Country Summer
In the New World:
Growing Up with America, 1960–1984
Saints & Sinners
Remembering Satan
Twins:
And What They Tell Us About Who We Are
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2000 by Lawrence Wright
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Simon & Schuster and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Designed by Leslie Phillips
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Wright, Lawrence, date.
God’s favorite : a novel / Lawrence Wright.
p. cm.
1. Panama—History—1981—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3573.R53685 G63 2000
813'54—dc21
99-048508
ISBN 0-684-86810-5
ISBN-13: 978-1-4391-2951-7 (eBook)
Lawrence Wright, God's Favorite
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