Pablo Escobar: My Father

by Juan Pablo Escobar, Andrea Rosenberg (Translator)

Overview

THE POPULAR SERIES NARCOS CAPTURES ONLY HALF THE TRUTH. HERE, AT LAST, IS THE FULL STORY.

THE INTERNATIONAL BEST SELLER!

Until now, we believed that everything had been said about the rise and fall of Pablo Escobar, the most infamous drug kingpin of all time, but these versions have always been told from the outside, never from the intimacy of his own home.

More than two decades after the full-fledged manhunt finally caught up with the king of cocaine, Juan Pablo Escobar travels to the past to reveal an unabridged version of his father—a man capable of committing the most extreme acts of cruelty while simultaneously professing infinite love for his family.

This is not the story of a child seeking redemption for his father, but a shocking look at the consequences of violence and the overwhelming need for peace and forgiveness.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250145024
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/29/2017
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Son of the infamous leader of the Medellín cartel, Pablo Escobar, Juan Pablo Escobar is an architect, lecturer, drug policy reform advocate, and writer. He was a subject of the award-winning documentary Sins of My Father and lives in Argentina.

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Betrayal

2. Where Did the Money Go?

3. My Father’s Origins

4. The Renault Coke

5. Papa Narco

6. Excess

7. Napoles: Dreams and Nightmares

8. MAS Mayhem

9. Politics: His Biggest Mistake

10. Better a Grave in Columbia

11. Barbarity

12. Tales from La Catedral

13. Worry When I Tie My Sneakers

14. Peace with the Cartels

Epilogue: Two Decades in Exile

Editorial Reviews

“While focusing largely on his father, Escobar also includes the grim repercussions the cartel boss’s career had on his family. The matter-of-fact prose serves the material well—when one’s daily life is a surreal blur of excess and danger, there’s no need for embellishment.”—Publishers Weekly

“Escobar writes earnestly … will satisfy curiosity regarding the tawdry reality of childhood within a criminal family.”—Kirkus

From the Publisher

2016-06-30
Biography of drug kingpin Pablo Escobar (1949-1993) by his understandably conflicted son.Escobar, an Argentina-based architect and subject of the documentary Sins of My Father, sees his father’s infamy alongside qualities of a devoted family man: “he always had us in his heart, even as he used terror to intimidate his enemies.” The author intends not to detail his father’s smuggling empire but to document the fuller life of the man—and settle some scores regarding his father’s siblings. He says at the outset, “I wish to publicly ask my father’s victims…for forgiveness.” In his view, neither Escobar’s rural youth nor early years as an enterprising small-time criminal prefaced his war against society. By 1975, early forays into cocaine smuggling made him a young millionaire; years of success followed, giving the author a childhood of absurd luxury. However, in 1982, Escobar erred in entering politics. “He mistakenly believed that he could traffic drugs while also holding a seat in Congress,” he writes. Over the next two years, his public exposure led to calls for prosecution and extradition, provoking Escobar toward a campaign of bombings, assassinations, and kidnappings. Eventually, he became a fugitive (often accompanied by his family) and expanded his war to the Cali cartel. This part of the narrative becomes jumbled, as Escobar simultaneously negotiates with the government and pursues violent schemes through a dwindling cadre of followers. “I felt powerless in the face of my father’s brutal methods,” writes the author. “He no longer listened to anyone’s advice.” Following Escobar’s inevitable-seeming demise, the author and his mother had to negotiate for their lives with his enemies. Escobar writes earnestly, relying on descriptive detail, though it can feel artificially reconstructed, particularly regarding the often stagey dialogue. The author is unable to explain how the warm, quirky father he presents and the criminal who normalized widespread violence within drug smuggling are the same person. This results in frequent dissonance. Uneven but will satisfy curiosity regarding the tawdry reality of childhood within a criminal family.

Kirkus Reviews