God's Favorite: A Novel

by Lawrence Wright

Provides a fictional account of the events that took place in Panama in the late 1980s that led to the capture of Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction

352 pages, Hardcover

First published March 9, 2000

About the author

Lawrence Wright is an author, screenwriter, playwright, and staff writer for The New Yorker magazine. He has won a Pulitzer Prize and three National Magazine Awards.

His latest book, The Human Scale , is a sweeping, timely thriller, in which a Palestinian-American FBI agent teams up with a hardline Israeli cop to solve the murder of the Israeli police chief in Gaza. According to The New York Times, “Wright succeeds in this complex, deeply felt work.”

He is the author of 11 nonfiction books. His book about the rise of al-Qaeda, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Knopf, 2006), was published to immediate and widespread acclaim. It has been translated into 25 languages and won numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. It was made into a series for Hulu in 2018, starring Jeff Daniels, Alec Baldwin, and Tahar Rahim.

Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief (Knopf, 2013) was a New York Times bestseller. Wright and director Alex Gibney turned it into an HBO documentary, which won three Emmys, including best documentary. Wright and Gibney also teamed up to produce another Emmy-winning documentary, for Showtime, about the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi.

In addition to The Human Scale, Wright has three other novels: Noriega: God’s Favorite (Simon and Schuster, 2000) which was made into a Showtime movie starring Bob Hoskins; The End of October (Knopf, 2020), a bestseller about a viral pandemic that came out right at the beginning of COVID; Mr. Texas (Knopf, 2023), which has been optioned as a limited streaming series.

In 2006, Wright premiered his first one-man play, “My Trip to Al-Qaeda,” at The New Yorker Festival, which led to a sold-out six-week run off-Broadway, before traveling to Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. It was made into a documentary film of the same name, directed by Alex Gibney, for HBO.

Before he wrote the novel, Wright wrote and performed a one-man show also called The Human Scale, about the standoff between Israel and Hamas over the abduction of an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit. The Public Theater in New York produced the play, which ran for a month off-Broadway in 2010, before moving to the Cameri Theater in Tel Aviv. Many of the ideas developed in that play later evolved into the novel of the same name, published 15 years later.

In addition to his one-man productions, Wright has written five other plays that have enjoyed productions around the country, including Camp David, about the Carter, Begin, and Sadat summit in 1978; and Cleo, about the making of the movie Cleopatra.

Wright is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Society of American Historians, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He also serves as the keyboard player in the Austin-based blues band, WhoDo.

Reviews

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pulitzer Prize winning author Lawrence Wright describes the late 1980’s Panama awash in drugs and US dollars (military and CIA). He grafts a personality on to the stone (pineapple to some) faced Dictator Manuel “Tony” Noriega as he holds power.

Tony as portrayed understands his predicament, and he is cynically prepared to do anything to stay in power. He must stay in power, because, ugly and deformed, he would never be respected without it. One sub-plot is that he is in love and thinks that money and power is all that holds the free spirited Carmen to him.

There is a parallel story to Tony’s and this is that of the nuncio who has been warned by the Vatican to stay out of politics. This is impossible because the nuncio has an idealist young priest on his staff and Tony wants to make contact. There are cameos for Oliver North and Pablo Escobar and a host of colorful characters like the deluded Roberto Diaz Herrera and brash General Honeycutt.

The thoughts of Tony and the dialog throughout had me turning pages.

I checked Wikipedia to see how much of this was true. I saw that Noreiga was interested in the occult and eastern religions as the author shows and that in jail he “found Jesus”. As I write this he is still alive in a Panama jail (he served his US time) and is suing Activision for its depiction of him in a videogame.

If you are a purist regarding historical fiction, this is not for you, but if you want a fast paced novel loaded with irony based on true events you will love it.

[Dan Graser · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very fine work of historical fiction, dealing with the last few years of Manuel (Tony) Noriega's rule of Panama, culminating with the US invasion of 1989. When you have an investigative journalist like Lawrence Wright tending to the narrative, you are gifted with a grasp of history and geopolitics that is unmatched. His prose can at times be a bit simple and at the outstretch of the novel, somewhat dull. However, given the subject matter, Wright's pacing of a, "spiraling toward chaos," narrative makes for engaging reading after the more expository chapters and maintains a great deal of historical credibility throughout.

The main character here is a combination of what is historically known about Noriega along with a dash of Tony Montana from Scarface (at least to me that seems to be the character of Tony Noriega presented). The dynamics of CIA workings, the political instability of Panama's government and military, the insanity of the man himself, and the conflicting role of the Panamanian people in the events that lead to the US invasion are deftly and interestingly handled by Wright. For those interested in thrillers, historical fiction, and political fiction; this is a fine contribution from an immensely able writer.

[Lee · Rating 1 out of 5]

In the first few pages there are very descriptive deaths by rape and other torture. I decided I did not want to continue as a scan ahead showed more of the same.

[Terry Edelbrock-mcglone · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked the book and found it hard to put down. Now going ti check out what really happened...the actual documented history!

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was ok. I never really followed the Noriega stories so I didn't know fact from fiction but the last few pages got to me as he is confessing to a priest and he is rationalizing what he has done. I'm sure a lot of interesting characters feel this way as well.

[Suzanne C · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brilliantly well written, sardonic account of the fall of Tony Noriega - dictator of Panama. An interesting fictional account of his last days in power.

[Alex Peck · Rating 3 out of 5]

B- I appreciated Wrights foray into fiction but this didn’t wow me.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book (satire) had me laughing throughout. And checking wikipedia constantly to remember what happened historically.

[Tina · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an unusual and odd story. It was enjoyable but it illustrates the danger of historical fiction. You think you're learning something - and you are - but you have no real way to separate the facts from the fiction. Turns out this story is basically true to the historical timeline of Panama under General Noriega but the character of Noriega himself is a complete fiction. This character was the most interesting part of the story, and until I read the comments at the end, I believed that he truly was this enigmatic interesting and brutal individual. So I did feel a bit let down by that. Overall, this was a good read - not a page turner but interesting in a dark comedic way

[Ariel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have read two of Wright's non-fiction books and was excited to try out this piece of historical fiction. Wright has a lot of credibility -- if accuracy were measured by the quantity of endnotes, then he would be the king -- so I trust all that I learned from God's Favorite about the colorful events in Panama in the mid- to late-1980's. Unfortunately, Wright's fiction writing leaves a lot to be desired. It often struck me as overly dramatic, cliche, and sometimes downright cheesy. Bummer. I have enough respect for his other work that I would give another novel a try, but I sure hope that it comes out differently.

[Chelsea Lawson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny, philosophical, and somewhat educational. Doesn't really matter to me that the book 'does not pretend to be a historical account' of Noriega and the Panamanian revolutions. The fictionalized characters were fun.

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Semi-interesting story. Not really impressed with the writing. I give it a solid "meh".