El ruido de las cosas al caer
Juan Gabriel Vasquez. Doral, Florida: Alfaguara/Santillana, 2011. 259 pp. ISBN: 9781616056117.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
by: Reviewed by Stefanie Bakken

Section: Adult Book Reviews


Fall/Winter 2011

Reviewed by Stefanie Bakken, Denver Public Library, CO.

In this novel, which won the Alfaguara Prize for Best Novel 2011 (Premio Alfaguara de Novela 2011), Antonio Yammara, like many Colombians in the early 1990s, has become accustomed to a life constantly exposed to accounts of drug trafficking violence.  Soon enough, this recent law school graduate and father-to-be becomes a direct casualty of that violence - a wounded man crippled by fear who has abruptly lost the happy life he had anticipated.  Yammara had developed a casual friendship with Ricardo Laverde at a neighborhood pool hall in Bogotá, having no idea he that friendship would doom him as collateral damage on the day Laverde is assassinated and 16 others are shot.  Yammara obsessively searches for answers as to who Laverde really was and the reason his own life was ruined.  Readers can enjoy this book on a superficial level for a thrilling story of suspense, but can also delve deeper into intriguing layers of metaphor and symbolism, beginning with the title, translated into English as The Sound of Things Falling

 

RECOMMENDED as an essential addition for public and academic libraries.

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