Like Aunt Julia And The Scriptwriter

I've always loved Mario Vargas Llosa's Aunt Julia And The Scriptwriter, particularly the way some characters migrate from one story line to another. This is a very funny, very enjoyable book, and I recommend it.

And if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, sometime I'd like Manuel Acero to migrate from desde Desdemona and The Dream Antilles into my nonfiction writing to infuse it with greater passion. I'd like that especially this week, because the upcoming 1000th execution in the United States, now scheduled for 2 am on 12/2, is something he and I both want passionately to denounce. How, we wonder, can we pretend to be civilized when we fill our minds and our time with such barbarism? What do we have to do so that we can refuse to be our worst selves? Isn't killing 1,000 people too much by far?