Amid the typical tragedies of a Central American Republic—poverty, coups and countercoups, disastrous financial intrigues—are interspersed bouts of high comedy and magical realism: the national sport of Tineieblas is running for president; Kiki at one point in his smuggling career becomes so calloused that he is literally bulletproof; his father runs one election campaign entirely by astrology; conflict over an American military base near the capital of Tinieblas causes a "flag plague" in which activists break out in stinging rashes of their national colors.