The Jaguar's Children
A Novel
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- 10,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
This "extraordinary" novel of one man's border crossing reveals "a human history of sorrow and suffering, all of it beginning with the thirst to be free" (NPR).
Héctor is trapped. The water truck, sealed to hide its human cargo, has broken down. The coyotes have taken all the passengers' money for a mechanic and have not returned.
Héctor finds a name in his friend César's phone: AnniMac. A name with an American number. He must reach her, both for rescue and to pass along the message César has come so far to deliver. But are his messages going through?
Over four days, as water and food run low, Héctor tells how he came to this desperate place. His story takes us from Oaxaca—its rich culture, its rapid change—to the dangers of the border, exposing the tangled ties between Mexico and El Norte. And it reminds us of the power of storytelling and the power of hope, as Héctor fights to ensure his message makes it out of the truck and into the world.
Both an outstanding suspense novel and an arresting window into the relationship between two great cultures, The Jaguar's Children shows how deeply interconnected all of us are.
"This is what novels can do—illuminate shadowed lives, enable us to contemplate our own depths of kindness, challenge our beliefs about fate. Vaillant's use of fact to inspire fiction brings to mind a long list of powerful novels from the past decade or so: What is the What by Dave Eggers; The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif; The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult." —Amanda Eyre Ward, The New York Times Book Review
"[A] heartbreaker . . . Wrenching . . . with a voice fresh and plangent enough to disarm resistance." —The Boston Globe
"Fearless." —The Globe and Mail
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Following his nonfiction works The Golden Spruce and The Tiger, Vaillant delivers a dramatic, tense novel that begins in the claustrophobic confines of a water truck, in which 15 would-be immigrants to the U.S. are trapped; among them are Hector Mar a de la Soledad L zaro Gonzalez and his friend Cesar Ram rez Santiago. When the vehicle lurches and suddenly stops, it knocks Cesar unconscious, leaving Hector to search for a cellphone signal to send out an SOS. A series of text messages and sound files form the narrative as Hector tries to contact AnniMac, the only contact in Cesar's phone with a U.S. number. The author doesn't let the reader get trapped alongside the duo, however, instead including a series of flashbacks in which Hector relates stories from his family history and the events that led him to join Cesar in fleeing Mexico. Taking on illegal immigration and human trafficking, as well as the misdeeds of multinational corporations, the book is sometimes didactic, although the importance of its themes, which closely mirror life, cannot be doubted.
