Helpful Score: 4
This is a truly exceptional novel, one of the best I've read for a book club in which I am a member, Reading Books by International Authors. Although it takes place in a nameless war-torn South American country (probably meant to represent Peru, as the author is Peruvian), the focus is less on war than its consequences. Character-driven more than plot driven, we focus on Norma the much-beloved host of the Lost City Radio Show, which reads the names of the missing each day in the hopes of reuniting families torn apart by war. But we also get to know Victor, the young boy from the jungle who is mysteriously brought to her, Manau who brings him, and Rey, Norma's missing husband who disappeared in the jungle ten years ago and who may have been secretly involved with a terrorist organization that opposed the government. The characters are vividly drawn and very real, and the atmosphere of the novel is surreal but believable, unlike the magical realism of many South American writers and yet haunting in its own way.
