Portrait of a Gentleman

The story of Lucio Cavaliero, a Venezuelan writer and cosmopolitan libertine, reveals a vibrant and thrilling account of his carnivalesque exile in New York. Also an emigre against the backdrop of his home country's political turmoil, Lucio drifts from roof to roof, bed to bed, living hand to mouth as he wanders down the unexpected alleyways of estrangement, disenchantment, opening for the reader the floodgates of his inner life. Yet the search is not only his-the winds of politics carry him into the midst of a conspiracy as he is given for safekeeping confidential documents about the Venezuelan leader, Hugo Chavez. A modern-day homage to the tradition set by the likes of Rabelais and Roth, Portrait of a Gentleman presents a lucid study on the many and intricate layers of the life of the artist as a young man.