Extravagant, absurd, and self-aware, The Revolutionaries Try Again plays out against the lost decade of Ecuador's austerity and the stymied idealism of three childhood friends--an expat, a bureaucrat, and a playwright--who are as sure about the evils of dictatorship as they are unsure of everything else, including each other. Everyone thinks they're the chosen ones, Masha wrote on Antonio's manuscript. See About Schmidt with Jack Nicholson. Then she quoted from Hope Against Hope by Nadezhda Mandelstam, because she was sure Antonio hadn't read her yet: Can a man really be held accountable for his own actions? His behavior, even his character, is always in the merciless grip of the age, which squeezes out of him the drop of good or evil that it needs from him. In San Francisco, besides the accumulation of wealth, what does the age ask of your so-called protagonist? No wonder he never returns to Ecuador.
"Cardenas's exuberant debut novel, The Revolutionaries Try Again, profiles a group of Ecuadorans trying, some harder than others, to change the political situation in their country. Stuffed with dizzying leaps from character to character, from street protests to swanky soirees, and from lengthy uninterrupted interior monologues to rapid-fire dialogues, the novel also includes some wonderful long s
Publishers Weekly
"The Ecuadorian writer has delivered his debut, The Revolutionaries Try Again. While it is, indeed, very much a novel rather than a political manifesto--it depicts four childhood friends as they regroup in adulthood and aim to change their country's politics for the better--Cardenas reveals, via some stunning and shapeshifting prose, that politics in Ecuador isn't as straightforward as it appears
Kenyon Review
"This is an original, insubordinate novel, like his grammar, like his syntax, but fabulously, compellingly readable, with endearing characters like Leopoldo's grandma, who would tie a white plastic bag on her head like a wig and perform Macbeth for him at her farm, proclaiming in unintelligible English, 'Blo win, crack you cheek, rage! Blo!'"