«Luis Noriega hits the moral target of our times. He has chosen the hyperbole, that distorting mirror, valleinclanesco, of reality. The clown is the central figure of the circus. There is no circus without clowns. It is not a minor or less credible circus that we see parading through this hilarious novel.» - Ernesto Ayala-Dip, Babelia
«This novel is proof that an explicitly political story can face the challenge of offering a formally complex exercise without losing a single drop of dynamism and fun.» - Alberto Sánchez, Brother Pig
This is a novel of clowns and politicians; politicians who don’t know they are clowns and clowns who would like to pursue a political career. But it is also a novel of integrity gurus and diplomatic harpies, real journalists and news inventors, happily married teachers and videogame teenagers, faint-hearted authors and mercantilist editors, zombies and mercenaries and psychopaths …
What the reader has in their hands is not a farce because it is a comic piece that uses exaggeration, parody and other resources of the kind, but because its characters are a collection of frauds. Nothing more realistic, in fact, than putting a clown as a candidate for presidency.
The democracy of the 21st century is here an eternal survey, that of the Permanent Barometer of Opinion, the online tool that twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, faithfully reflects the state of the opinion. A town connected to the internet may not need elections, but circus will always be needed, especially when it is a town without bread. All in all, the clown Cucaracho is more than just an entertainer; he is the biggest threat to the status quo that the country portrayed here has known in more than a decade.
This is a novel of clowns and, therefore, the only thing that could be criticized is the cramps of laughter that the reader will seek. Of course, as everyone knows, clowns are sad beings, and it is even sadder that this farce about a corrupt and powerless country is so similar to life in so many countries. However, we must not forget that, as one of the distinguished frauds of this farce that reflects on itself says, the great discovery of the modern novel is that unhappiness sells.