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3.82 AVERAGE
3.82 AVERAGE
Nominated both for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Booker Prize, this is without a doubt a unique and ambitious book. It deals with the migrant crisis in the US, particularly the number of unaccompanied children who cross the border from Latin America each year (and are now put in cages by the Trump administration). The story is told through the eyes of a family who are on a road trip together across America towards the region known as Apacheria, which used to be inhabited by the Apache people. It will be their last trip all together, as the parents’ marriage is very clearly falling apart. They are both sound engineers and the mother (in shades of Milkman, none of the family have names, they are Ma, Pa, the Boy and the Girl) wants to document the crisis of these migrant children, who she thinks of as the Lost Children. The father, on the hand, is interested in the Apaches, which explains the trip’s destination.
I found the first part of the book to be heavy going – it is narrated by Ma and she is prone to philosophical and intellectual rambling which I found a little hard to follow and, in places, dull. It does however contain the odd powerful insight, including the following, which in my opinion hits the nail on the head:
“I suppose the convenient narrative has always been to portray the nations that are systemically abused by more powerful nations as a no-man’s land, as a barbaric periphery whose chaos and brownness threaten civilised white peace. Only such a narrative can justify decades of dirty war, interventionist policies and the overall delusion of moral and cultural superiority of the world’s economic and military powers”.
The second half of the book is better – narrated by the boy, it is far less of a slog, and I really liked his relationship with his younger sister. They are not actually related by blood (he is Pa’s child, she is Ma’s) and it is clear that at the end of the book they will be forced to separate as a result of their parent’s split, as many migrant families are forced to separate, which makes things more poignant. The children are told about the lost children by Ma, hear the news about them on the radio, and in a particularly compelling and horrifying scene, actually witness some of them being “removed” (deported) on an aircraft. The boy also reads the book-within-a-book Elegies for Lost Children, which details the hazardous and terrifying journey of seven children to and across the US border. It was really interesting to consider the issue from a child’s perspective, and Luiselli does this really well.
The book has a lot to recommend it – it provides interesting insights and contrast into the treatment of both indigenous people and migrants in America, and in particular how the histories of these people are documented and archived. It is also an admirable attempt to draw attention to an issue which is currently a huge stain on America’s reputation. However, I have only given it three stars because the first half of the book was a bit difficult to get through, and because in places it feels like it is trying to do too much. I almost feel like the book-within-a-book, Elegies for Lost Children, would have been better as a stand-alone.
Nevertheless a remarkable achievement and worthy of its prize nominations.
I found the first part of the book to be heavy going – it is narrated by Ma and she is prone to philosophical and intellectual rambling which I found a little hard to follow and, in places, dull. It does however contain the odd powerful insight, including the following, which in my opinion hits the nail on the head:
“I suppose the convenient narrative has always been to portray the nations that are systemically abused by more powerful nations as a no-man’s land, as a barbaric periphery whose chaos and brownness threaten civilised white peace. Only such a narrative can justify decades of dirty war, interventionist policies and the overall delusion of moral and cultural superiority of the world’s economic and military powers”.
The second half of the book is better – narrated by the boy, it is far less of a slog, and I really liked his relationship with his younger sister. They are not actually related by blood (he is Pa’s child, she is Ma’s) and it is clear that at the end of the book they will be forced to separate as a result of their parent’s split, as many migrant families are forced to separate, which makes things more poignant. The children are told about the lost children by Ma, hear the news about them on the radio, and in a particularly compelling and horrifying scene, actually witness some of them being “removed” (deported) on an aircraft. The boy also reads the book-within-a-book Elegies for Lost Children, which details the hazardous and terrifying journey of seven children to and across the US border. It was really interesting to consider the issue from a child’s perspective, and Luiselli does this really well.
The book has a lot to recommend it – it provides interesting insights and contrast into the treatment of both indigenous people and migrants in America, and in particular how the histories of these people are documented and archived. It is also an admirable attempt to draw attention to an issue which is currently a huge stain on America’s reputation. However, I have only given it three stars because the first half of the book was a bit difficult to get through, and because in places it feels like it is trying to do too much. I almost feel like the book-within-a-book, Elegies for Lost Children, would have been better as a stand-alone.
Nevertheless a remarkable achievement and worthy of its prize nominations.
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
The plot of this book is hard to explain -- it's a road trip book, essentially, about the end of a family. Both parents are artistic academics, pursuing different projects that lead them to the south west -- he's trying to document the echoes of Apacheria and she's creating an archive of lost children--specifically those lost during border crossings or separated from their parents at the border. The book is told mostly in short sections with thematic titles, there are artifacts--basically, everything about this book would be annoying if it wasn't done so well, but I loved it and actively dreaded the ending.
the prose is amazing, but I didnt care for the boy character, he is a little boring
Om barn som försvinner i öknen efter att ha korsat gränsen mellan Mexiko och USA. Samt om en familj i upplösning på en road trip New York - öknen. Det vävs ihop. Första halvan: mycket bra. Sen faller det ihop, börjar eka tomt, stilistiska grepp som känns sökta. Och om man nu är så fasligt nöjd med sin egen belästhet och smarthet att man måste förklara alla sina intertextuella referenser och allusioner för läsaren i ett appendix, ja då kanske man inte har lyckats fullt ut ändå med sitt romanbygge.
"Our mothers teach us to speak, and the world teaches us to shut up"
Luiselli presents multiple layers of story: a family on the verge of splitting up, a highly abstracted idea of migrant children lost in the desert, later a narrative of their journey north across the Mexico-U.S. border, and disjointed stories of “lost” Apache tribes of the Southwest U.S.
I want to acknowledge thoughts by other reviewers that helped me think about the Native American representation more critically. The father in the story is obsessed with documenting the “echoes” of the “lost” Apache tribes. I’m uncertain how much of what we read, through his voice, is factual vs. mythologised or shaped by his (or Luiselli’s) worldview. But the tribes who made up the Apache have not been lost, and are real, living communities today. There was even one point where the father is going to talk with a descendent of Geronimo, but we don’t hear his voice, and Luiselli reverts back to gravestones and echoes. Meanwhile, the family give each other “warrior names” and behave in very appropriative ways in a several spots. As such a major theme of the book, it’s hard to separate this problematic representation, which Luiselli doesn’t seem to be conscious of.
The writing style is fascinating. Luiselli used the structure to bring you into her themes. The majority of the book is written in short bursts, each with a label, all safely contained for later consumption. In a word: archived. These story pieces are contained in sections of the book she labels “boxes”. Only later do we get a very dream-like, stream-of-consciousness chapter, one that reflects the state of the narrators at that time.
The impossibility of trying to record, photograph, archive, to capture, to remember, the living breathing world is the most important message. It’s a shame that Luiselli didn’t use the MASSIVE OPPORTUNITY she had to reflect that idea through the voices of Native American storytellers who continue the tradition of oral history and learning to this day. Not lost, not archived. Still here, and available if you care to listen.
Follow me on #bookstagram: @brianreadsbooks
I want to acknowledge thoughts by other reviewers that helped me think about the Native American representation more critically. The father in the story is obsessed with documenting the “echoes” of the “lost” Apache tribes. I’m uncertain how much of what we read, through his voice, is factual vs. mythologised or shaped by his (or Luiselli’s) worldview. But the tribes who made up the Apache have not been lost, and are real, living communities today. There was even one point where the father is going to talk with a descendent of Geronimo, but we don’t hear his voice, and Luiselli reverts back to gravestones and echoes. Meanwhile, the family give each other “warrior names” and behave in very appropriative ways in a several spots. As such a major theme of the book, it’s hard to separate this problematic representation, which Luiselli doesn’t seem to be conscious of.
The writing style is fascinating. Luiselli used the structure to bring you into her themes. The majority of the book is written in short bursts, each with a label, all safely contained for later consumption. In a word: archived. These story pieces are contained in sections of the book she labels “boxes”. Only later do we get a very dream-like, stream-of-consciousness chapter, one that reflects the state of the narrators at that time.
The impossibility of trying to record, photograph, archive, to capture, to remember, the living breathing world is the most important message. It’s a shame that Luiselli didn’t use the MASSIVE OPPORTUNITY she had to reflect that idea through the voices of Native American storytellers who continue the tradition of oral history and learning to this day. Not lost, not archived. Still here, and available if you care to listen.
Follow me on #bookstagram: @brianreadsbooks
There were a lot of things I didn’t love but overall it made me think and I really enjoyed reading it
This one is a puzzle to me. I can’t say I liked reading it? But I feel such respect for it and it really made me feel something. It was literary and slightly allusive unlike anything else I’ve read recently. The first half felt so pretentious to me at times that I found myself almost dismissing it from time to time. I never would have picked it up without my bookclub. But it’s worth a read. The last 3/4 were perfect and beautifully constructed, and I don’t know if that could have happened without the build up. I listened to it, and this audiobook had a high production value, with different narrators and voices. I liked that the Elegy of Lost Children turned into the perspective of real children they met along the road, and in the audiobook, the narrator’s voices overlapped in those parts, entwining. It was really beautiful. And Memphis and Swift Feather’s two chapters at the end almost made me cry, and I realized she really did understand the world differently, and he was doing all he could to remember her and help her remember him. The last few chapters were absolutely beautiful.