Lost City Radio

From Publishers Weekly Set in a fictional South American nation where guerrillas have long clashed with the government, Alarcón's ambitious first novel (after the story collection War by Candlelight) follows a trio of characters upended by civil strife. Norma, whose husband, Rey, disappeared 10 years ago after the end of a civil war, hosts popular radio show Lost City Radio, which reconnects callers with their missing loved ones. (She quietly entertains the notion that the job will also reunite her with her missing husband.) So when an 11-year-old orphan, Victor, shows up at the radio station with a list of his distant village's "lost people," the station plans a special show dedicated to his case and cranks up its promotional machine. Norma, meanwhile, notices a name on the list that's an alias her husband used to use, prompting her to resume her quest to find him. She and Victor travel to Victor's home village, where local teacher Manau reveals to Norma what she's long feared—and more. Though the mystery Alarcón makes of the identity of Victor's father isn't particularly mysterious, this misstep is overshadowed by Alarcón's successful and nimbly handled portrayal of war's lingering consequences. (Feb.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Product Description For ten years, Norma has been the on-air voice of consolation and hope for the Indians in the mountains and the poor from the barrios—a people broken by war's violence. As the host of Lost City Radio, she reads the names of those who have disappeared—those whom the furiously expanding city has swallowed. Through her efforts lovers are reunited and the lost are found. But in the aftermath of the decadelong bloody civil conflict, her own life is about to forever change—thanks to the arrival of a young boy from the jungle who provides a cryptic clue to the fate of Norma's vanished husband. From Bookmarks Magazine Daniel Alarcón, a native of Peru, has personally witnessed the devastation he describes in his first full-length novel. Critics were full of praise for Alarcón's vivid descriptions, compelling characters, and refusal to side with any one political faction, though he obviously sympathizes with the country's dispossessed. While the Rocky Mountain News was distracted by the country's lack of identity, most critics agreed that a specific name or place was unnecessary, given the fablelike nature of the story. Often compared to the work of William Faulkner and Gabriel García Márquez, Alarcón's harrowing tale of the breakdown of a society and the emotional price paid by its survivors will undoubtedly haunt you long after you've turned the last page. Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. From Booklist *Starred Review* Fiction lovers recognized a clarion new voice in Alarcon's short story collection, War by Candlelight (2005). Lima-born Alarcon now presents a debut novel that is a marvel of concision and soulfulness. Norma lives in stunned solitude in an enormous South American metropolis, mourning her missing husband, Rey. Blessed with a honeyed voice, she channels her grief into Lost City Radio, an immensely popular show dedicated to the country's countless disappeared, displaced, and disconnected. Then Victor, a thin, quicksilver boy fresh from the jungle, appears at the station with a list of missing people that undermines everything Norma cherishes. The riveting story Alarcon tells both encompasses and surpasses the all-too-familiar sequence of tyranny, resistance, and loss as he writes with rare liquid fire, meshing flashbacks of Rey's transformation from ethnobotanist to guerrilla with Norma's searing memories, and Victor's transforming adventures. Writing rapturously and elegiacally of the wildness in both jungle and city, creating indelible images that concentrate the horrors of war, and unerringly articulating the complex feelings of individuals caught in barbaric