I found this book difficult to read. It is made up of a series of short stories / vignettes which slowly (clumsily) come together to form the novel. Set in 1950s Manila where the Marcos regime is in full swing, we hear from members of a number of privileged families and their associates, who include prostitutes, actors and drug addicts. In fact there were so many characters, so many points of view that I found myself completely lost at times and wishing for some sort of family tree diagram so I could keep track.

Hagedorn’s Philippines is one where bureaucracy has gone wild, and the entire population are either corrupt or on the make. There is not one sympathetic character amongst the many in the book and I only just managed to read on despite the fact that I did not care about any of them. ( )