Sour Life

By: Pablo Zaragoza, Susan Giffin

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

A Cuban family patriarch, late in life, narrates Sour Life, historical fiction surrounding his family’s fight to preserve democracy in that Caribbean island nation; their ultimate loss of their beloved homeland and emigration to the United States; his service as a Green Beret in the Vietnam War; and subsequent medical service in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Underlying these efforts is his struggle to thwart drug trafficking and find the CIA killer of his Laotian wife and unborn child. Revisionist history dominates the first section on Cuba and takes the reader around the world as the patriarch fulfills his mission to deliver healthcare and hunt the killer, ultimately ending in war-torn Nicaragua, where he exacts his revenge. He descends into one careless delivery of drugs and lands in federal prison on a five-year sentence. That section departs from fiction and gives an eye-opening inside look at the problems in the U.S. criminal justice system, as does his re-entry first through a halfway house and then back into the real world where he again struggles to find his rightful place and restore relationships with his family. From beginning to end, Sour Life is touching, well-balanced historical fiction, filled with romance and revenge, drama and determination: a real page-turner.