Daniel AlarcónRecensioner

I really like Alarcon's style, and this collection is very unified and very him. Kind of sad and searching?

This is a wonderful book--except for the very end! The concluding section did not fit at all and was so disappointing. If not for that, I would have given this book 4 stars. The characters are interesting and engaging, the story is told in a way that draws you in and the themes are fascinating, especially the role.of art and performance in our lives and at all levels, social, pooitical and personal.

Thoughtful view into the pervasive personal effects of an oppressive government and a culture of untruth.

Rogelio is a quiet, uneducated man who has always felt like an outsider. Henry is a writer whose last play left him in a lot of trouble. These two men are brought together because the prison system in this is a con. They do not have much in common other than being in prison. It was a tragic read, while I couldn't relate to the characters, I did relate to their loneliness.

I love him on Radio Ambulante but I’ve never loved short story collections and unfortunately this one just didn’t grab me. Enjoyed the style/narrator’s voice of the last story most.

I was running down my to-read list in the library yesterday and found this book, read that the author was Peruvian, and immediately hunted it down in the fiction aisle, seeing as I'm leaving for Peru the day after tomorrow. I'm glad I did -- Alarcón really gives you a feeling for the varied experiences of Peruvians and Pervuian-Americans and their complicated history as a people, as well as for the country's manifold physical settings, and the stories here do seem to establish a human context for the place and the culture.

Thematically, the stories touch on divergent plots and themes -- many of them deal with the terrorist/fighting that took place in Peru in the 1980s from a very close, gritty level; some stories treat unrequited love, or unfaithful love; almost all stories discuss poverty. However, despite the diverse themes and plotlines and characters, the writing style throughout is restrained, realistic fact, which occasionally expands into a more contemplative, streaming form.

The style bothered me. Sometimes Alarcón would write about an action that a character took and it'd feel so logical, almost predictable, that I lost my ability to empathize with the characters. The title story was like that, as was the last story -- the writing was, essentially, sterile.

At other times, when Alarcón lets his characters' thoughts trickle in, when he holds their thoughts and actions more urgently closer to the reader, then he succeeds, and his writing blooms. The juxtaposition of the restrained writing with the emotional vibrancy of the characters at those moments is then especially sharp and poetic. (I especially felt it in the first story, Flood, in Third Avenue Suicide, in the story about the dogs, and in A Science of Being Alone.)

But a lot of the time, it doesn't work. And even when it works, it's obscured by the times it doesn't work. So that even if most of this book was good -- and it was, really truly this book was mostly good -- it was also forgettable.

Norma è la voce più amata del paese: conduce Radio città perduta, un programma notturno in cui legge i nomi delle persone scomparse durante i dieci anni di guerra civile e repressioni governative che hanno diviso amici, amanti e famiglie.
Anche quella di Norma: suo marito è uno dei desaparecidos e l'ha lasciata sola con lo smarrimento di chi non ha altro che la speranza, anche la più immotivata, per non cedere alla rassegnazione.
Victor ha undici anni ed è uno degli orfani creati dal conflitto: ha abbandonato la giungla e il suo villaggio per partecipare alla trasmissione di Norma.
Norma e Victor sembrano legati solo dal caso.
Ma forse non è così: forse a unire ciò che la dittatura dell'oblio ha diviso sarà la necessità della memoria. E una voce alla radio, nella notte.

This is the first of the books I've recieved from the Shelterbox book club, and is this is typical, these are going to be very good. Thbis is a set of short stories set in Peru and the US with the link being someone from peru. There is a lot of migraiton, from the country to the city and from the city to the US within these pages. At times it is an uncomfortable read, with violence, war and crime looking large. It does not make for a restful or particularly hopeful experience. But it is not devoid of light and shade or love and humour. In the first story, the prison is known as the University, as that's where you go when you finish hugh school. It's black but it is humour.
The stories don't all work as well as each other, but there are some very good tales in here. That of Fernando and Juan Carlos being probably the pick of the crop.
I'm looking forward to the discussion, to be held in October via Shelterbox's Facebook pages.

interesting story about a boy who grows up in Lima, with a father who is barely around and a mother who keeps to herself as a maid for a neighborhood family. Father ends up passing, and we find out more about his double life.

As with so many short fiction collections, this one is really a mixed bag. The highlights for me were The Bridge and The Auroras. Unfortunately the rest suffered from either abruptness or a lack of specificity that I found nagging.

Beautiful writing. The first half of the collection is significantly stronger than the second half. "Abraham Lincoln Has Been Shot" is maybe my favorite short story of the year, but the two long stories near the end of the book just dragged for me.

This was an okay read, but it wasn't one I was crazy about, which sometimes happens. It just wasn't for me. No regrets, but it just was okay.

Impressive novel that deals with the personal toll civil war takes on individuals. It is part dystopia, but clearly inspired by Peruvian (and more generally American nations) history with internal violence. Norma's effort to sort through the disinformation and the temptation we all feel to accept the more comfortable lie that the bitter truth strikes an authentic note. I'll keep an eye out for more from Alarcon.

Wow. Read this book.

This graphic adaptation of Peruvian author Daniel Alarcon's fictional work is a remarkable example of visual storytelling. Journalist Oscar "Chino" Uribe's father has just died, leaving two families--that of his wife and that of his girlfriend. Although one might think such an arrangement would be solely the prerogative of the upper classes, Oscar's family is far from wealthy. Instead, his father supported both families by preying on the wealthy as part of a complex operation of thieves. Adding to this shame is the fact that the victims grow to include the kind employers of Oscar's mother, who years before went to great lengths to arrange a school scholarship for their housekeeper's son. While the education provided by this school enabled Oscar to advance in life, the social rejection of his classmates, who saw him as street trash, cut deeply. The complexity of Oscar's emotions is given shape by Sheila Alvarado's art, which puts us squarely in Oscar's wounded heart as we watch the tragic narrative unfold.

Alarcon reminds me of Roberto Bolano - the third-person narration in this book adds to this impression. The everyday somehow becomes transformed into a sort of mythology. Characters get caught up in a story that defeats them, punishes them. A classic example of the theme I call "life as a prison."

In an unnamed city in an unnamed South American country, Norma is the beloved on-air host of “Lost City Radio,” where the nation’s lost and tormented souls try to reconnect with loved ones they’ve lost track of. It is ten years since the most recent civil war ended – at least officially. But people still live in fear of reprisal and even Norma’s show isn’t immune to the sort of self-censorship that comes from self-preservation. Norma’s husband is among the missing, and she daren’t read his name aloud.

The powerful thing about this book is that it is so universal. While it takes place in South America, it could take place in many countries around the world. Alarcon explores what it means to live in constant fear, trusting no one, afraid that any small slip of the tongue may mark you as the enemy or a collaborator, leaving you second-guessing every small gesture or the posture of that stranger on the street you’ve seen once too often recently. His use of the orphan boy, Victor, to trigger the memories of the adults he comes across is an effective technique. For like most children, Victor’s needs are simple and immediate. He doesn’t understand the larger implications of his mission to take a list of missing from his small mountain village to the large city radio station. He only knows that he is alone, and that this is his chance to find his father.

Alarcon mixes tenses fluidly and sometimes within one paragraph. A remark or smell will trigger a memory and the text follows the character’s wandering mind as he or she remembers something that happened in the past. Then, just as suddenly as awakening from a dream, the action is back in the present and we are back on the bus headed for the city, or back in the café having lunch. It sounds as if this would be very confusing, but Alarcon is skilled at making this device work wonderfully.

In the end, only the reader knows what happened to one missing person, while being left to wonder what will happen to the many.

Already looking forward to his next novel - the book fulfills the 'prodigious talent' blurbs on the back. At its simplest, for anybody who's ever been involved in putting on a play, the first two-thirds will be one of the best books about 'community theatre' you'll ever read. At its most complex, it spans politics, post-revolutionary culture, coming-of-age, travelogue, violence, and more.

Why 3-and-a-half stars? Just didn't feel as if the energy carried all the way through to the end - given how much I enjoyed the first part, a really difficult task, but it sometimes felt like some easy-way-out choices were being made after the 'return to the city' from the travelling play. That said, I assume someone this good will only get better - I'll jump on the next book when it comes out.½

Slow, kept waiting for it, never happened, wasted my time, stupid ending

Lost City Radio by Peruvian writer Daniel Alarcón is a haunting and tragic story set during the recent aftermath of a brutal civil war that tore apart an unnamed country in South America. Norma hosts a radio program called Lost City Radio. Each night she goes on the air and reads the names of people who went missing or were displaced by the war. The names are provided by her legions of loyal listeners from throughout the country who live in the hope that by having the names read on the radio they will be reunited with their missing loved ones. Occasionally reunions take place, and Norma’s producer stages these during the show for maximum dramatic effect. Norma has kept her own desperate and fading hope alive for ten years: the hope that her husband Rey, who went missing in the final days of the war, will return to her. However, she cannot safely utter his name on the air because, as an accused rebel collaborator, he is still officially wanted by the authorities, and this is a country where a vigilant and uneasy government is always watching and listening. Everything changes when a boy named Victor arrives at the station after a lengthy journey from his home—an obscure village in the forest—bearing a list of names for Norma to read, a list that includes Rey. Rey, a biologist with a fascination for medicinal plants, visited the forest often, and as Norma gains Victor’s trust the boy reveals things about Rey’s time in the forest that Norma never suspected and which change her perspective on the past she shared with him. Alarcón’s narrative cleverly reconstructs Rey’s past piece by piece as Norma learns more of his activities while in the forest and as she recalls the intimacy of their early courtship and eventual marriage. Alarcón evokes a tense post-war society where danger lurks around every corner and no one is truly safe. Lost City Radio is a suspenseful and powerful novel, one that builds to an explosive climax, and in the process depicts in frightening and agonizing detail the human cost of war.

Could not take the boredom any longer.Too much pointless pontificating and no plot development. Disjointed narration from whoever is framing the story. Just didn't care. Returned to audible.com. Only the second book I've ever returned.

Crybaby fanboys who can't take someone else's opinion are really funny and pathetic. So sad. And funny.½

Another one from the Tournament of Books 2014 that just wrapped up. This is a book I can only describe as sludgey. It seemed like I was trudging through it through most of the tournament, reading a few pages here and there. It couldn't keep my attention. I wanted to like it. The main character is trying to figure out the life of the leader of his theater group, and his life slowly starts to mirror his. Even without an interest in theater, a theater group's trip through South America should have had much more. Not much happens... everything is left to the background. More than this had to happen. The most amusing part for me was a fridge turned into a clothes closet since it was so cold all the time that the food didn't need to go in the fridge. Information about the main character is gradually unraveled but you're left with a feeling of "That's it?" The idea of a prison without cells or else cells that are never really locked is simply frightening though.½

3.5 out of 5, really. The first 7/8s, really, of the novel are quite good. Hypnotic, almost. Alarcón captures the magic of theater, the mystery of it too – and the magic/mystery of interpersonal relationships as well. And the cloud of (say it again!) mystery around the novel builds and grows and then when it’s cleared away… you read the last 50 or so pages with an “oh… so, that’s it?” sort of reaction. You can’t deny Alarcón’s talent as a writer but I just wish the novel had ended up packing more punch.

More at RB: http://ragingbiblioholism.com/2013/12/02/at-night-we-walk-in-circles/

Set in an unnamed Latin American country emerging from the trauma of a long-fought civil war, Daniel Alacron’s At Night We Walk in Circles follows Nelson, a young aspiring actor who seeks out his hero Henry, a playwright and director of the group Diciembre, whose satiric play “The Idiot President” had landed him in prison for a year. Now, in calmer days, he has agreed to plans made to revive the play and take it on the road to back country villages, performing on whatever stage or open field was available. Nelson has left his life behind to join Henry on this tour. The ravages of war and its aftermath are still everpresent: drugs, violence and extreme poverty. Our unnamed narrator take us through Nelson’s rite of passage during the tour where love and understanding become entangled and painfully sad at what becomes the final performance.