Discussion for The Sound of Things Falling

[Diane , Armchair Tour Guide]

Start discussion here for The Sound of Things Falling by Juan Gabriel Vásquez.

[Diane , Armchair Tour Guide]

About the Book (from LitLovers)

In the city of Bogota, Antonio Yammara reads an article about a hippo that had escaped from a derelict zoo once owned by legendary Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. The article transports Antonio back to when the war between Escobar’s Medellín cartel and government forces played out violently in Colombia’s streets and in the skies above.

Back then, Antonio witnessed a friend’s murder, an event that haunts him still. As he investigates, he discovers the many ways in which his own life and his friend’s family have been shaped by his country’s recent violent past. His journey leads him all the way back to the 1960s and a world on the brink of change: a time before narco-trafficking trapped a whole generation in a living nightmare.


About the Author

Juan Gabriel Vasquez is a Colombian writer and the author.
He studied Law in his native city, at the University of Rosario in Bogota, and after graduating left to France, where he lived in París from 1996 to 1999. There, at the Sorbonne, he received a doctorate in Latin American Literature. Later he moved to a small town in the Ardennes in Belgium. After living there for a year, he moved to Barcelona, where he resided until 2012. Today he lives in Bogota.

[Cat]

This was another one I just couldn’t finish. I think the events were a bit too horrific for me.

[Fiona]

I thought the author is a good storyteller. However, I didn´t like the ending; too many loose ends.