Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá is one of the most prolific and ambitious Caribbean writers of recent times. Since 1974, when La renuncia del héroe Baltasar (The Renunciation of the Hero Baltasar) appeared, he has published eight books: two novels on the eighteenth century, one of them ominously long since it presents itself as the first installment of a still-unfinished trilogy; four collections of short works chronicling modern Puerto Rico from the beginning of the Muñoz era to the Cerro Maravilla murders; a thorough critical study of José Campeche, the first Puerto Rican painter of the colonial era; and Puertorriqueños: Album de la sagrada familia puertorriqueña a partir de 1898 (Puerto Ricans: An Album of the Sacred Puerto Rican Family Since 1898, 1989), a history of the development of the island's petite bourgeoisie based on the snapshots from a photograph album. In...