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Lost City Radio

by Daniel Alarcón (Goodreads Author)

3.59 of 5 stars 3.59 · rating details · 1,022 ratings · 208 reviews

A powerful and searing novel of three lives fractured by a civil war

For ten years, Norma has been the voice of consolation for a people broken by violence. She hosts Lost City Radio, the most popular program in their nameless South American country, gripped in the aftermath of war. Every week, the Indians in the mountains and the poor from the barrios listen as she reads...more

Hardcover, 272 pages

Published January 30th 2007 by HarperCollins Publishers (first published 2007)

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Jun 03, 2008 Yulia marked it as left-unfinished

I've gotten 56 pages into it so far and have nothing to complain about, which is unusual for me. I don't think of it as having a sci-fi atmosphere, as some readers suggest. Though it does have the dystopian bearings of books like 1984 and We, those worlds are all too recognizable and easy to identify with. No flying cars or talking robots here. What the book does have is clean, evocative language that creates a vivid and foreign landscape. And no, Alarcon doesn't sprinkle in Spanish words to rem...more I've gotten 56 pages into it so far and have nothing to complain about, which is unusual for me. I don't think of it as having a sci-fi atmosphere, as some readers suggest. Though it does have the dystopian bearings of books like 1984 and We, those worlds are all too recognizable and easy to identify with. No flying cars or talking robots here. What the book does have is clean, evocative language that creates a vivid and foreign landscape. And no, Alarcon doesn't sprinkle in Spanish words to remind us we're in South America or to give his characters a cultural flavor. (Junot Diaz, pay attention.)

So what's wrong with me? Why aren't I racing through this? I've yet to figure that out. I do want to know what happens, but . . . but . . . Does it lack momentum? Am I lying to myself about caring about the characters?

No, I figured out what's bugging me. I'll admit first I never cared for the writing of 1984 or Brave New World, found many passages in both embarrassing even. But those books I read in high school, where there was no choice (for me) not to finish them, and even in college, when assigned We in a class, I finished it, though not caring for it and finding the ending very problematic. So now we have Alarcon, who is actually much more readable and delivers a fluid prose, sympathetic characters, and a puzzle that makes you want to know what happens.

So what's the problem? Beneath my approval of the writing and my interest in the story, I feel Alarcon hasn't created a concrete framework for his unnamed country. It isn't enough to know people always try to take over the government or that wars are always started or imagined by the government. Perhaps Alarcon doesn't want to get bogged down in the specifics of a particular corruption or scandal; he wants to make his country's problems and his message against war universal, which is commendable in theory, but these generalities don't make for a convincing book. His world feels like an experiment, but an incomplete one with not all the instructions identified. Maybe such problems are inevitable when an author creates and speaks for a society rather than a finite group of individuals. Is that what the book jacket reviews are hinting at when they call this book "ambitious"?

I watched "In the Valley of Elah" a few nights ago. It portrayed the human costs of war on our soldiers: on their psyche, their moral boundaries, their diminishing value of human life. This book, by contrast, seems too abstract to pierce my consciousness. Make me care!

I think I would tolerate it more if it were read to me. Frank read me The Trial, whose coquettish vagueness would otherwise bring me to a halt. That's the way to finish this. (less)

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Jim I think you have put your finger on the weakness of the book for me. It felt like an exercise rather than something that happened to people I cared ab...more
5 de Jun 05:04

Yulia Jim, I think you're right about Kafka. He takes things to an extreme, which ends up working, by making the circumstances both other-worldly and very u...more
updated 5 de Jun 16:42

Jim I like the idea of the Kafka pesticides. Very nice.
5 de Jun 16:37

Aug 19, 2007 Tom Mayer rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: fans of good fiction

I remember reading this in early bound galley form so there may have been changes between my edition and the final, published version. I initially soght out Alarcón's work because I learned that he was friends with friends from school who now lived in San Francisco. His short stories -- from the NYer, Tin House, etc. -- are taught and vivid (cf. WAR BY CANDLELIGHT). This first full length novel is about Norma, who hosts a radio program hoping to reunite those uprooted and disappeared in an unnam...more

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Apr 20, 2013 Tea Jovanović rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: editor-of-serbian-edition

Ovo je jedna knjiga koja čitaoca baca u potpunu nedoumicu šta da misli... Nametnuta mi je na uređenje (nije bila moj izbor), ja je nikad ne bih objavila jer mi nije jasno kome je i čemu namenjena, a opet nije loše napisana... baš me zanima da li ju je neko od vas čitao, i šta vi mislite?

malo teksta:

1.

Normu su povukli s programa tog utorka ujutru zbog jednog dečaka koji je ostavljen u radio-stanici. Bio je tih i mršav i držao je cedulju. Recepcionerka ga je pustila da prođe. Sazvan je sastanak.
Sa...more

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Jun 12, 2011 RETRODOLL rated it 3 of 5 stars

Peruvian born Daniel Alarcon is a newer name in fiction (first full length book) and definitely one to keep an eye on after reading "Lost City Radio." The author tells the story of some unnamed S. American country in the midst of a guerrilla warfare -- between the government military and some freedom - based uprising group named the I.L. When he writes his prose is very beautiful, there's a fluidity to his style but still it lacked any sort of weight; also he asked too many rhetorical questions...more Peruvian born Daniel Alarcon is a newer name in fiction (first full length book) and definitely one to keep an eye on after reading "Lost City Radio." The author tells the story of some unnamed S. American country in the midst of a guerrilla warfare -- between the government military and some freedom - based uprising group named the I.L. When he writes his prose is very beautiful, there's a fluidity to his style but still it lacked any sort of weight; also he asked too many rhetorical questions throughout the book. I couldn't help but remember in those moments while reading, "oh, he's still new at this." The story is centered around Norma a radio host for the show "Lost City Radio" and her format is letting people call in and voice their concerns over loved ones who they've been separated from. Norma's own husband the carefree scientist Rey has been disappeared without reason for 20 years. A small child from the jungle area of the country named Victor is left at the radio station for Norma along with a note. She is supposed to take care of this strange child! The note contains the name of the missing people from Victor's village, and whose name is among those on the note? You guessed it, Rey. Norma and Victor navigate the sometimes violent and turbulent paths of the city to figure out what Rey was up to and if he is still alive. There are some nice plot twists in the story that added for effect. I didn't like that the author would jump from one time in story back to the past -- sometimes he did this from one paragraph to the next. It just made the story harder to digest and took a few moments to realize he was talking about a different time in the storyline, yet again. Books like this can get to be overly political and start spilling the author's views into the fictional plot, thus ruining the story for its readers. I was VERY impressed that Alarcon didn't do this. He gives us the details of the war and the various viewpoints of characters but I never felt like I was being beat over the head with political diatribe straight from the horse's mouth. For someone like me, who doesn't read a lot of politically charged books, this was "political thriller - lite" and worked for me, anyway. I look forward from reading more from this author -- once he works out the small kinks of his writing as time goes on in his literary career :) (less)

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Aug 15, 2012 Maggie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

Norma is a popular radio announcer renowned for a program called Lost City Radio, which tries to match up the many, many missing people of the country with those still living and within listening range. One of the places that listens to her show is a town by the name of 1797, where Norma's own husband disappeared, and which determines to send a emissary to Norma with the names of all their missing - a list which includes her husband's name. The emissary is a young boy, who's very recently lost h...more

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Jul 05, 2007 Maura rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

So beautiful and sad. The main character, Norma, lives in the capital city of an unnamed Latin American country experiencing an uneasy peace after the end of a decade-long civil war. Norma--or rather, her voice--is a kind of national icon because of her radio show, to which listeners call and tell her about their friends and family who have disappeared in the war, in the hopes that they're alive and will hear. Norma is somewhat disillusioned with the show, but continues partly out of her own una...more

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Sep 18, 2008 Alfonso rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

The book is set in an unknown Latin American country that is run and controlled by the government. Norma is a radio host that calls out the names of people who are either "lost" or missing. Her husband is missing and she does not know if he is alive or dead. One night a young boy from a village comes to the radio station and has a list of names of people missing in his village. His mother has died and his father has not been seen and could be dead. Not knowing anyone in the city and having been...more

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Oct 25, 2007 Barbara rated it 5 of 5 stars

Daniel Alarcon does a remarkable job of putting the reader in the environment of a country that has been at war with itself for so long that the people have lost touch with themselves. What happens to a man when a teenaged prank is mistaken as revolutionary action and alters his life forever? What happens to a newsperson who goes on the air each week but can't report the news? How are people changed psychologically when they never know where the next blow will come from, when there is no logic t...more

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Feb 22, 2009 William rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2009

Very well done. Captures well the feelings of loss and futility of people caught up in the civil war of an unnamed Latin American country.
Norma is a brodcaster on whose radio show people call in with the names of those with show they've lost contact in the hopes that they will be listening and reunited. Norma herself has lost her husband without knowing how or even whether he is alive. One day, a young boy arrives at the station and his story fills in a large gap in her life.
Only one character i...more

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May 03, 2013 Karen Hansen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Daniel Alarcon's novel "Lost City Radio" is set during a violent civil war in Peru (although not named as Peru) and follows several characters from a myriad of backgrounds and locations as their lives intersect in surprising ways.

I wanted to enjoy this book, but felt a big disconnect. I'm not completely sure what created the disconnect, but at times, I was finding it a chore to read the book. It seemed just as I was ready to give up, a beautiful passage would draw me in and compel me to keep rea...more Daniel Alarcon's novel "Lost City Radio" is set during a violent civil war in Peru (although not named as Peru) and follows several characters from a myriad of backgrounds and locations as their lives intersect in surprising ways.

I wanted to enjoy this book, but felt a big disconnect. I'm not completely sure what created the disconnect, but at times, I was finding it a chore to read the book. It seemed just as I was ready to give up, a beautiful passage would draw me in and compel me to keep reading.

Alarcon writes lyrically and it's easy to get swept away by his beautiful prose.

I found the narraration occasionally be confusion, as he would switch voices. It was an artistic choice, that didn't always work for me. This could have been the biggest factor towards creating the disconnect.

At times, the story felt repetitive in its sentiment or just simply not moving forward with regard to either plot or character development. It's not a particularly tricky story with twists and surprises, but the way story jumped between characters and time frames it felt like an episode of "Lost"!

As far as the plot, I found the plight of the Indians to be the most engaging. Alarcon has many big themes in his story and the one of globalization and expanding territories was the biggest take-away for me. It was the most affecting portion of the story. This is a story of people that do not have power and who are without a voice. None are more powerless than the natives caught in the middle of a war that is not even theirs.

I enjoyed the interview with the author following the story, more than I enjoyed the story itself. It seems like Alarcon has a rich family History and even though he is adept at writing fiction, I wish that he had written a non-fiction account on the subject.
I enjoyed the interview with the author following the story, more than I enjoyed the story itself. It seems like Alarcon has a rich family History and even though he is adept at writing fiction, I wish that he had written a non-fiction account on the subject.

Please visit my blog for more reviews and musings!(less)

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Feb 06, 2013 Book Concierge rated it 4 of 5 stars

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...more 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.
(less)

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Nov 16, 2012 Satch rated it 3 of 5 stars

From my International Fiction Book Club blog:
The International Fiction Book Club met the evening of September 19th, 2012 at the Blum House to discuss Lost City Radio by the Peruvian born writer, Daniel Alarcón. To understand the author’s perspective that inspired him to write this book, I gave a little background gleaned from a 2007 interview with the San Diego Reporter in which he describes important events that led to his development as a novelist. Born in 1977 in Peru, Alarcón moved with his...more From my International Fiction Book Club blog:
The International Fiction Book Club met the evening of September 19th, 2012 at the Blum House to discuss Lost City Radio by the Peruvian born writer, Daniel Alarcón. To understand the author’s perspective that inspired him to write this book, I gave a little background gleaned from a 2007 interview with the San Diego Reporter in which he describes important events that led to his development as a novelist. Born in 1977 in Peru, Alarcón moved with his physician parents to Birmingham, Alabama when he was 3 years old. During his childhood, every other year he would make extended stays with his parents back in his homeland and attend school while he was there. He experienced the Shining Path guerrilla movement without really knowing what was happening. The blackouts in his school were a time for playing jokes. Then, in 1989, his uncle, a leftist university professor and union leader, disappeared from the earth. In 1999, Alarcón went to Peru and investigated his uncle’s disappearance. In 2001 he won a Fullbright scholarship to do anthropological work in Peru. He would often listen to a radio program entitled, Busca Pesonas (People Finder). The Lost City Radio program is loosely based on this experience of listening to people search for their lost loved ones.

When first thinking about writing on this subject, Alarcón thought maybe it would be a work of non-fiction. We discussed how perhaps he was overwhelmed at the task of trying to explain the philosophy and history behind the civil war that plagued Peru through the 80’s and into the 90’s. One would also likely have to try and deal with the extraordinary politics of 20th Century Peru. From 1930 to 1980 there were 6 military coups and democracy was only a relative term and still continues to be a work in progress. I read an excerpt from a research paper I wrote in 1999 explaining the origin and philosophy of the Shining Path, which the Illegitimate Legion of the book is based upon. A few people commented that the author did not engage the reader enough by avoiding historical detail that could illuminate a struggle that started back in the 16th century when the Spanish conquered the Incas.

So, by setting the story in a fictionalized country the author attempts to “collectivize the experience of displacement”. He did not want to get caught up in the particular details of Peru’s civil war. Norma is the voice of the Lost City Radio program and has a devoted following because of her bringing together families and friends who were lost during the war. The war has been over for 10 years in the “present” time of the novel. Most of the action, however, is omnisciently given through flashbacks of Norma’s relationship with Rey, her eventual husband, and part-time messenger for the IL whose missing case is brought to the forefront of Norma’s life once again by the appearance of a boy from the village in the mountains where Rey did field work in Botany.

We see the life of the indigenous people through various characters and the author uses events that resonate with symbolic meaning. We talked about how one such device was perhaps pivotal in removing any attempt at historical detail. Tadek was a ritual that the remote village people used to discover who was guilty of a crime. A young boy is given an hallucinogen and blindfolded. He is led to the forest where he is surrounded by the possible suspects. The first person he touches is the guilty one and must have his hands cut off. Alarcón handles this brilliantly and the blind justice of both the government and IL death squads revolve around this portion of the story. The question was asked whether or not tadek was practiced in Peru. In the interview mentioned above, Alarcón explains that it was not. He had read a book about Haile Selassie and it described a tradition of this sort that was practiced in Ethiopia.

Though the book succeeds because of adept writing, even while changing time-frames within the same paragraph, it was a common remark that it failed on a larger level without focusing on details of the war in Peru. A short story forced into a novel? Perhaps, but it was a good enough read to foster a lively discussion.(less)

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May 07, 2012 Carl Brush rated it 3 of 5 stars

Not far into Daniel Alarcon’s Lost City Radio I began to have negative thoughts. I’d been so impressed by the brilliance of his debut short story
collection War by Candlelight (see my comments from April 25, 2007) that I wanted more brilliance and was not finding it. The tale seemed to wander, seemed to lack the taut focus of most of Candlelight’s stories. I wondered if this wasn’t another example of a short story craftsman defeated by the demands of the novel form. Though disappointed, I forged...more Not far into Daniel Alarcon’s Lost City Radio I began to have negative thoughts. I’d been so impressed by the brilliance of his debut short story
collection War by Candlelight (see my comments from April 25, 2007) that I wanted more brilliance and was not finding it. The tale seemed to wander, seemed to lack the taut focus of most of Candlelight’s stories. I wondered if this wasn’t another example of a short story craftsman defeated by the demands of the novel form. Though disappointed, I forged on, for the characters and their situations were compelling enough even if the storytelling technique was lacking. Around halfway through I changed my mind.
I think the sense of wandering comes from the unconventional way that Alarcon chooses to reveal the story’s action. At first, it seemed to me ordinary flashback. Then the flashbacks’ chronology became jumbled, and at times it seemed almost as if the story was being told backwards--not as a memory as in a regular flashback, but with final scenes coming before beginning scenes, then scenes from the middle popping up. None of it was confusing in the sense that I lost track of where I was in the chronology of events, just puzzling about why one particular episode would appear in a particular place. Why the young boy’s birth, for example, should be treated not only after his appearance in the story as a 10-year-old, but after his earlier boyhood and schooldays.
It began to dawn on me that Alarcon’s montage of scenes is perfectly consonant with the jumbled experience of the characters and their own places in the on-again-off-again civil war that dominates their lives. Every life in Lost City’s composite South American country is defined by lives lost. Mothers, fathers, children, friends have all disappeared into the hands of government or guerillas, and relatives and friends end up spending great portions of their lives wondering, grieving, and searching.
The novel’s protagonist is Norma, a late-night radio host whose spellbinding voice has captivated the country from jungle to coastal desert, and whose program tries to help reunite people separated by the war. It’s a dangerous business for her as well as for the broadcastees. For some, being found means death. To others, the searcher can bring governmental (or guerrilla) retribution on himself. The radio station itself must avoid announcing certain names which the government has demanded never be uttered. Norma has her own loss, her own grief, to deal with, and that search is at the center of the novel. How much she knows compared to how much we know heightens the irony, and sometimes the suspense comes from wondering how much of what we already know she will discover and how it will affect her. Keeping that suspense flowing is part of the victory of Alarcon’s technique.
The focus of Lost City Radio is personal, but the scope covers a great deal of history and geography. I believe you’ll end up grieving, as I did, not only for the book’s characters, but for the millions who are trapped in the situation that Alarcon describes. A significant piece of writing and of history. I look forward to more from him.(less)

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Jun 16, 2011 Elaine rated it 4 of 5 stars

Evocative story about a war between a fascist government and a vague guerrilla movement in an unnamed country in an unnamed era. The lead character is the host of a radio show (thus the title) who reads the names of people who have disappeared or been disappeared during the war. She is handed lists of names in the city markets, people call from distant villages, illiterate people walk to the radio station to tell Norma the names of their missing, in hopes that she will read the names over the a...more

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Jun 02, 2010 Jenna rated it 3 of 5 stars

There is much to be respected in this book--Alarcon is clearly a very gifted writer. This is his first novel, and I have no doubt he will continue to write incredible work.

This novel has a fatal flaw, and it is a significant one: the novel is set 10 years after the main character, Norma, has last seen her husband, Rey. She keeps hoping that he will reappear and, in the world that Alarcon has created, this is not so unlikely. Norma lives in a fictional South American country that has undergone t...more There is much to be respected in this book--Alarcon is clearly a very gifted writer. This is his first novel, and I have no doubt he will continue to write incredible work.

This novel has a fatal flaw, and it is a significant one: the novel is set 10 years after the main character, Norma, has last seen her husband, Rey. She keeps hoping that he will reappear and, in the world that Alarcon has created, this is not so unlikely. Norma lives in a fictional South American country that has undergone the terrors and confusion of civil war. In the turmoil of the war, the citizens of this country have moved, fled, disappeared. Norma broadcasts a show called Lost City Radio over which she recites the names of family members still missing or friends longing to be reunited. Her own husband's name has been forbidden by the government to be included in the show, due to suspicious activities on his part during the war.

The problem is, I didn't see how it was possible that Rey would still be alive. 10 years is a long time, and even Norma has begun to recognize that. I don't doubt the hopefulness of the human heart, but I do doubt Alarcon's chronological choices. I was often confused by time is this novel--when did the war start, how long did it last, how long had Rey and Norma been married when he disappeared? The answers to these questions seemed inconsistent. I think Alarcon could have had a very successful novel is all the reminiscences in this book were provided as recent events instead of decade-old memories. It would have been a very different novel, I admit, but I wanted the suspense of where Rey is and whether or not he makes it to be palpable instead of stale.

Alarcon makes good use of the tradition of magical realism. Nothing is overtly magical, just borderline fantastical, such as an artist who can depict a lost loved one perfectly just through an oral description. Elements such as this were perfect, and other parts of the book were heartbreaking. Having enjoyed all of the short stories of his that I've read, and many aspects of this book, I look forward to Alarcon's future work.(less)

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Apr 03, 2008 jeremy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

like a friendship that would otherwise be a great romance, this novel has everything but the spark. intelligence, imagination, beauty, empathy, promise, even poise, yet swoon i could not (despite attempts to convince myself that i should have enjoyed it more than i did). alarcón is clearly quite talented, and, considering his relative youth, perhaps lost city radio is but a harbinger of the many exceptional, more finely honed works he seems capable of creating.

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Feb 26, 2008 Suzanne rated it 3 of 5 stars

The book takes place in a nameless war-torn country in South America where the country is in a sense, united by those they have lost. In Alarcon's novel, neither faction is strictly right or wrong, rather he writes about the senselessness of war and the lives that are affected.

I enjoyed the book and thought it a good read, though perhaps not mind blowing. And although written about a South American country, the themes are relevant to our particular time and place.

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Jun 29, 2010 Amy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Daniel Alarcon has appeared on at least two lists about "young novelists to watch." On top of that, he resides in Oakland, so how could I not seek this book out?

Anyway, he deserves the hype for this book about war and its survivors and perpetrators. Norma has a radio talk show called "Lost City Radio" where people call in to talk about their loved ones who have left the jungle for the city, or often have been disappeared by the government. Norma has a huge interest in this topic as her husband h...more

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May 18, 2009 Simi rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book was fascinating - the story is really amazing. I really enjoyed how the author wove together different time periods and different characters. I liked the main character, Norma, the radio personality for a show called Lost City Radio where she takes calls from people who have lost someone. She too has lost someone, and I really felt her loneliness. Her husband, Rey, disappeared 10 years ago and she doesn't know what happened to him. There was a war (maybe a revolution) and thousands of...more

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Feb 05, 2009 Bookmarks Magazine added it

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Jan 24, 2009 Aleta rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a fascinating novel set in an unnamed South American country which has been ravaged by civil war. Norma lives in the city, and she hosts a weekly radio program called "Lost City Radio", where she reads the names of the disappeared, and every so often, reunion shows are broadcast. Her husband, an ethnobotanist, is one of the disappeared, but his is one of the names that she can not say over the air. A boy, Victor, from a jungle village, appears at the radio station bearing a list of names...more

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Feb 12, 2008 Anastasia rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2008, fiction

This book was extremely well-written and the author did a good job of building a sense of hope and expectancy about whether the main character would find her husband or at least learn what had happened to him. Because the main theme of this book was how people live through war times, it was depressing. If it weren't for that, I'd have been able to give it a higher rating.

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May 17, 2012 Patrick McCoy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary-fiction

I first encountered the writing of Daniel Alarcon in the Dave Eggers edited The Best American Nonrequired Reading series. The stories “City of Clowns” in the 2004 edition and “Second Lives” in the 2011 edition are the writings I read and enjoyed. He was also named one of the top 20 writers under 40 by The New Yorker in 2010. This year I am planning to travel to Peru and when I found out he was Peruvian American, I thought his novel Lost Radio City (2007) might give some insight into the culture....more I first encountered the writing of Daniel Alarcon in the Dave Eggers edited The Best American Nonrequired Reading series. The stories “City of Clowns” in the 2004 edition and “Second Lives” in the 2011 edition are the writings I read and enjoyed. He was also named one of the top 20 writers under 40 by The New Yorker in 2010. This year I am planning to travel to Peru and when I found out he was Peruvian American, I thought his novel Lost Radio City (2007) might give some insight into the culture. And I suppose it does. But, in an abstract manner since the novel is a dystopian story taking place in an unnamed Latin America country. There are obvious parallels to Peru and its struggles with the separtist Shining Path group and the brutal repressive regime of Fujimori. But there are aspects that are true of any number of Latin America countries where there are conflicts between totalitarian government and radical oppositional groups. The unnamed country resembles Peru in that the large capital city near the ocean and the jungle and mountain communities of the poor and disenfranchised. There’s something in the novel called tadek, which is described as a primitive form of justice carried out in jungle villages after, say, a theft. This is where the village elders choose a young boy, stupefy him with an intoxicating tea, and let him wander the village until he picks out a culprit, then the ‘culprit’ has his or her hands cut off. It turns out, according to Alarcon this practice actually comes from an Anna Kapuscinski book on Ethiopia (The Emperor). Norma is a popular radio host who has a show that tries to track down missing people and reunite them with families and friends. It also turns out that her husband, Rey, is a suspected member of the opposition group IL and missing as well. It was an interesting story told with intermittent flashbacks and a certain amount of grace. But, to be honest I didn’t find the novel as compelling as his short fiction and look forward to reading his collection of short stories, War By Candlelight. I am a big fan of the Harper Perennial P.S. additions to books. This one includes an interview with Alarcon, an article about the book “The Undead” in which Alarcon reveals that he has an uncle who “disappeared” in Peru, and a great list: “Ten Powerful Books from the Latin American Canon.”
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Aug 10, 2010 Paul rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010

I don't really like political fiction, so this book was not for me from the get-go. That said, it's written really well, and the stories are woven together pretty well, and not in that seen-it-all-before-Paul-Thomas-Anderson-ripping-off-Robert-Altman-bastardizing-Raymond-Carver way either. The problem, for me, with political fiction is the author often lets theme or idea or, worse, message get in the way of the characters ever developing into real people, or else slash and those characters only...more

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Aug 17, 2010 Stephanie W rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, latin-american

"What does the end of a war mean if not that one side ran out of men wiling to die?" Those were the first words of Alarcon's book that really haunted me--that really made me think in depth about this combination of dystopia and historical fiction. Daniel Alarcon tells the story of a nameless country at war with itself, reminiscent of Latin America in it's description of the jungles and simultaneously like every nation filled with social turmoil.

The characters are painfully real and Alarcon weave...more

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Jul 12, 2011 Ryan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: top25fiction

"She had been here just the day before, but this is what life does to you: things happen all at once, and your sense of time is exploded."

I wish someone gave me this quotation before I started reading this book. I paused before quoting it here...only because I feared it might be a philosophical spolier. When Alarcon writes it on page 245, it seems somewhat anticlimactic. I mean, I've now spent 97% of the novel whisking through time and space in a somewhat fictionalized, not-so-anonymous country...more

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Sep 09, 2011 Liz Murray rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

An author I'll definitely be keeping up with. In this novel Alarcon deftly moves between time periods, often with no breaks besides a new paragraph. The chronology of the war could be a bit confusing but you always knew where you were and in the end the chronology isn't as important as what actually happened. I felt the book lost energy towards the end and I wasn't so keen on how the plot turned. The 'revelation' for some reason felt forced to me. I felt it let air out of the balloon and I'm not...more

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Aug 06, 2007 Alex Fernie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Exceptionally well-written...The story revolves around three people in an unnamed South American country that was torn apart by a recent civil war. Alarcon uses the story of these three to show how war can continue to destroy lives even after the shooting stops.

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Mar 17, 2011 Robin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Lost City Radio, a program for missing people.
"Hers was the most trusted and well loved voice in the country."

"She could breathe him."

"Norma, to listen and heal them;Norma, mother to them all."

"She didn't have the copper glow his people had."

"For ten years, he had existed in memory, in that netherworld between death and life-despicably, sadistically called missing-and she had lived with the specter of him..."

"What does the end of a war mean if not that one side ran out of men willing to die?"

Th...more

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Apr 10, 2011 Joe rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I really wanted to like this book, especially since I loved War by Candlelight, but I didn't care about any of the characters at all; several key plot elements seem extremely forced (i.e. the revelation about Victor toward the end); the narrative quickly loses sight of Lost City Radio, the radio show, which seems like such a promising and interesting story element at first; and the chronological flow of events is jumbled in a way that, while it might be meant to build tension around the present...more

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About Daniel Alarcón

Daniel Alarcón’s fiction and nonfiction have been published in The New Yorker, Harper's, Virginia Quarterly Review, Salon, Eyeshot and elsewhere. He is Associate Editor of Etiqueta Negra, an award-winning monthly magazine based in his native Lima, Peru. His story collection, War by Candlelight, was a finalist for the 2006 PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award, and the British journal Granta recently name...more

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El rey siempre está por encima del pueblo

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“Are you a politician?
I hate politicians, he said. And, in any case, there's no such thing anymore: only sycophants and dissidents.” — 2 people liked it

“Memory is a great deceiver, grief and longing cloud the past, and recollections, even vivid ones, fade.” — 2 people liked it

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