 The construction of fictions surrounding the events of Trujillo 's regime allow a degree of freedom from the horrors that took places . Author Julia Alvarez contends that these events can " only finally be understood by fiction , only finally be redeemed by the imagination " , while Richard Patterson claims that Vargas Llosa " reconfigures , and to a large degree demythologizes " Trujillo and his brutal reign through use of narrative structure . Vargas Llosa 's writing acts as a cathartic force for this period in history . 
