I Am So There Next Year

Carlos Fuentes, in Houston to deliver the "prestigious Farfel Distinguished Lecture," divulges the plot of his latest novel, The Eagle's Throne:

It is a futuristic novel, set in 2020. Once again Mexico has not voted with the United States in the Security Council. There are American troops occupying Colombia; Mexico protests, and the United States cuts off all communications with Mexico, so people have to write letters to each other.

So it's a novel in letters, [based on] a hypothesis which President Clinton gave me. He asked me once why is there no vice president in Mexico. I said, "There were vice presidents in the 19th century, and all they did was plot the overthrow of the president. So the office was abolished." Clinton asked me what happens if a Mexican president dies in office. I said, "Ah, there is a novel there."