At Night We Walk in Circles: A Novel Author: Daniel Alarc?n | Language: English | ISBN:
B00C5R7E8W | Format: EPUB
At Night We Walk in Circles: A Novel Description
NPR “Best Books of 2013”
BookPage Best Books of 2013
Bookriot “Best Books of 2013”
San Francisco Chronicle Favorite Books of 2013: Francisco Goldman
Flavorwire 15 Favorite Novels of 2013The breakout book from a prizewinning young writer: a breathtaking, suspenseful story of one man’s obsessive search to find the truth of another man’s downfall. Nelson’s life is not turning out the way he hoped. His girlfriend is sleeping with another man, his brother has left their South American country, leaving Nelson to care for their widowed mother, and his acting career can’t seem to get off the ground. That is, until he lands a starring role in a touring revival of
The Idiot President, a legendary play by Nelson’s hero, Henry Nunez, leader of the storied guerrilla theater troupe Diciembre. And that’s when the real trouble begins.
The tour takes Nelson out of the shelter of the city and across a landscape he’s never seen, which still bears the scars of the civil war. With each performance, Nelson grows closer to his fellow actors, becoming hopelessly entangled in their complicated lives, until, during one memorable performance, a long-buried betrayal surfaces to force the troupe into chaos.
Nelson’s fate is slowly revealed through the investigation of the narrator, a young man obsessed with Nelson’s story—and perhaps closer to it than he lets on. In sharp, vivid, and beautiful prose, Alarcón delivers a compulsively readable narrative and a provocative meditation on fate, identity, and the large consequences that can result from even our smallest choices.
- File Size: 1263 KB
- Print Length: 385 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0007517394
- Publisher: Riverhead (October 31, 2013)
- Sold by: Penguin Group (USA) LLC
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00C5R7E8W
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #16,650 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #5
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > United States > Hispanic American - #14
in Books > Literature & Fiction > United States > Hispanic - #71
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Literary Fiction > Psychological
- #5
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > United States > Hispanic American - #14
in Books > Literature & Fiction > United States > Hispanic - #71
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Literary Fiction > Psychological
One of the epigraphs for Daniel Alarcon's third book, AT NIGHT WE WALK IN CIRCLES, is an interesting paragraph from thesis 30 of Guy Debord's THE SOCIETY OF THE SPECTACLE and it reads as follows:
"The spectacle's externality with respect to the acting subject is demonstrated by the fact that the individual's own gestures are no longer his own, but rather those of someone else who represents them to him. The spectator feels at home nowhere, for the spectacle is everywhere."
I read that paragraph several times before I started this novel but I didn't fully grasp its meaning or absorb its relevance until after I finished the book.
The novel is being marketed as "a breathtaking, suspenseful story" and even though I found it well paced and engaging, I would say the taste of irony is much more predominant than that of suspense.
The novel is set in an unnamed country in the Andes sometime after "the war" and a theatrical event entitled "The Idiot President," performed by a "guerrilla" theater troupe known as Diciembre, is at its core.
The story takes off with a touring revival of the legendary play to the country's provinces, starring a young aspiring actor named Nelson, the play's author Henry Nunez, (Nelson's idol and one of the original Diciembre players once imprisoned as a terrorist), and another original member of Diciembre, now a theater owner, named Petalarga.
The plot thickens and turns complicated as art imitates life and fate conflicts with identity when Nelson makes a spontaneous acting decision that results in shatteringly ironic consequences.
"Nelson was well liked, but hard to know.
Note: I received an advanced reading copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
My first impression is that At Night We Walk in Circles is the type of multilayered book that an English major could painstakingly dissect and then gleefully churn out pages and pages exploring literary device use and the underlying purpose and meaning of every story element. I will admit that I am a former English major, but, currently in the midst of writing research papers for grad school, I don't have the energy to be writing the lengthy literary analysis this book deserves and will be basing this review/rating on the novel's entertainment value.
The novel is about the life of Nelson, an aspiring actor and playwright, who lands a role in a touring theater troupe lead by his role model. Not an exciting premise by itself, but there were a few things that kept me reading: The narrator is unknown (until the last quarter of the novel), and pieced together the events that lead to Nelson's fate through interviews with his friends and family and from his abandoned journals. I was motivated to keep reading to find out who the narrator was and what had inspired them to investigate and retell Nelson's story. By the end, something significant and worthy of story-telling does indeed happen to Nelson, and, throughout the novel, the narrator drops hints that this something was not a good thing, maintaining a sense of apprehension that kept me turning the pages. The touring theater plotline takes an unexpected and unfortunate turn, which sets in motion the events that lead to Nelson's ironic and surreal downfall.
Overall, Nelson and the supporting characters were well fleshed out and interesting to follow.
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