alundeberg 's review for:

The Lost Book of Adana Moreau by Michael Zapata

4.0

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When I heard of Michael Zapata's "The Lost Book of Adana Moreau" about a Latin American science fiction writer, a lost manuscript, and parallel universes, I anticipated something mythical and magical along the lines of Carlos Ruiz Zafón or Silvia Moreno-Garcia. While there are personal quests, journeys to far off locales, and mysteries to be solved, the similarities end there. Zapata's novel is very real as he explores the themes of loss, connection, exile, family, war and destruction, and the power of telling one's own story. Spanning multiple generations and genocides, the novel centers on Saul Drower who tries to fulfill his grandfather's dying wish that the lost book of Adana Moreau be returned to her son. This leads to a journey to the past in the Dominican Republic, Russia, Great Depression America to Argentina during the Dirty War to post-Katrina New Orleans. It is a beautifully written heavy-read very relevant to these times as we continue to face destruction in the face of racism and COVID. Throughout the novel the idea of characters living in parallel universes-- where they are still alive, still together, still as a family-- is explored. This felt particularly relevant as COVID had pushed all of us into a parallel universe of pain and uncertainty; all of us can look at the calendar and know what we would be doing instead in our "normal" lives. Zapata's work is not a one-way mirror into escapism and magical worlds, but a mirror of our world and our tenuous hold on it.