Three strands of plot in The Feast of the Goat

Mario Vargas Llosa'a The Feast of the Goat comprises three narrative strands: General Trujillo in the last days of his dictatorship, scenes of him bossing and humiliating those in his power - this part most likely based on history but you could substitute the name of almost any dictator and the story would be the same; a young soldier in Trujillo's band joins several others in a plot to assassinate Trujillo - and these two strands of plot converging on a single moment, which I guess will be the assassination circa 1960 - based on history? I'm not sure - wish I knew more about the "facts" of the case, though, as all good fiction does, Vargas Llosa gives me the facts in a different way - deeper and more intensely personal and quirky than any historical account confined to verifiable external truths - fiction is more true than nonfiction, in other words - I do, however, wish the characters in this plot strand were more vivid - I can't even recall the main characters' name, for example - this strand, for Latin Americans, may be as imbued with history and memory as, say, Libra or The Executioner's Song were for American readers. Third strand and to me the most intriguing is the story of Urania, character Vargas Llosa introduces in the first scene, returning to Santo Domingo after decades of absence to visit or actually confront her dying father, complicit in Trujillo's reign of terror; as noted in yesterday's post, the big "reveal" about Urania is certainly going to be obvious to most readers - when she learns that she is actually Trujillo's illegit daughter - but what is holding my interest is how Vargas Llosa unfolds this and how the vist to her homeland affects and molds the character of Urania - she came with hatred and bitterness, but perhaps her views are being changed as she confronts people for her past, sees how ruined and ineffectual those she once feared (her father, the regime) have become, and sees the prosperity (and the inequities) all around her. At mid-novel, Vargas Llosa also begins to let us in her Urania's back story, her success in North America at the expense, it would seem, of her personality and her very identity. She has become a "gringo," but she is cut off from the love of others, from family, from any possibility of a family of her own.