57 pages • 1 hour read
Chris PavoneTwo Nights in Lisbon
Chris PavoneFiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Historical Context: Modern Portugal, Espionage, and the Salazar Dictatorship
Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses rape and sexual assault.
Pavone alludes to Lisbon’s setting as a port city with a rich history. Ariel is interested in the earthquake and tsunami that transformed it, a metaphor for her hops that the kidnapping plot will have transformative effects. The Portuguese detectives are shaped by history in their reactions to Ariel. One of them reminds her that “this was once the center of the espionage world […] during the Second World War” (78). The Iberian peninsula took on salience during the war due to the fall of France in 1940. Neutral Portugal became a prominent location for espionage and intelligence gathering on both sides of the conflict. Notable real-life intelligence agents in Lisbon included Kim Philby, Graham Greene, and Ian Fleming. The latter two became famous for leveraging their espionage experience into literary careers, especially Fleming’s creation of James Bond. The Bond novel Casino Royale was inspired by Fleming’s visits to Portugal’s Estoril Casino. The characters Ariel and John are part of a tradition of using the city as a backdrop to achieve greater goals—theirs is a war designed to expose corruption and violence against women.
Pavone’s fictional detectives also reference Portugal’s history of right-wing dictatorship. Antonio Salazar’s dictatorship endured from 1932 until his death in 1968. Salazar promoted Catholicism and was staunchly anti-communist. His economic policies ensured that much of the country remained rural and underdeveloped. Secret police suppressed political activity. This history of dictatorship influences the police’s decision not to intercept Ariel’s ransom drop, as they are concerned about the civilian backlash to perceived police overreach. The dictatorship ended in 1974, as years of unpopular wars to defend Portugal’s African colonies weakened the government’s hold on power and led to a transition to parliamentary democracy. Portuguese history makes the detectives cautious, leaving the CIA as the narrative’s key actors in exposing Ariel and John’s plan.
Cultural Context: The 2016 US Presidential Election and the #MeToo Movement
The 2016 election cycle in the United States was dominated by questions of gender bias. Hillary Clinton was the first woman nominated by a major party to contest the general election. Gender took on particular salience as she often wore white in homage to the suffragettes who fought for the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution, which prohibits sex discrimination in voting. Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, was a controversial candidate in part because of his personal history with women. An October 2016 tape from Access Hollywood featured Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women with impunity due to his fame and power. When Trump became president, women’s protests of his inauguration, known as the Women’s March, became the largest single-day protest in the country’s history.
This broader cultural reckoning with men in power enacting sexual violence and silencing survivors took on greater salience in 2017 when New Yorker journalist Ronan Farrow revealed a longstanding culture of silence around Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, who assaulted and raped multiple women and damaged the careers of survivors who spoke out and women who refused his advances. That same fall, the hashtag #MeToo, originally created by Black activist Tarana Burke in 2006, went viral as prominent figures and ordinary people went public with their experiences of rape, harassment, and sexual assault. Farrow’s 2019 book about the Weinstein case, Catch and Kill, documents the extensive use of nondisclosure agreements to silence survivors of sexual assault.
Pavone references both the 2016 election and the #MeToo movement. Ariel’s elaborate attempt to circumvent her NDA to expose a powerful man with political ambitions is clearly inspired by these cultural moments. Wolfe’s prominence in New York business and political circles evokes Trump’s career in some respects, though he functions as an embodiment of patriarchal violence more generally.
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