Trudie's Reviews > Lost Children Archive

* 4.5 *

In all honesty I was not looking forward to picking up the Lost Children Archive , as I thought it was going to be "difficult" and obtuse. To begin with it does appear to be overly filled with references to other novels, riffs on contemporary dance and digressions into such things as space suit design and sound mixology. Typically, I would struggle with this writing style but gradually Luiselli won me over. I became fascinated with this westward journey, the family dynamics and the larger story of the crisis at the border.

The novels structure was intriguing; the first half narrated by an unnamed mother and the second half by her step son. A story of two journeys; one in relative safety, west, and the other perilous, northbound. The contrast and parallels between these two intersecting journeys was what I loved most about this novel. It is also a remarkable depiction of parenting, not necessarily an ideal one, but a realistic one, a portrait of the dissolution of a relationship set against a backdrop of child migration. That juxtaposition of the deeply personal with issues of global import was sometimes jarring but ultimately I came to appreciate it.

This is the first novel I have read this year, that really spoke to me of "now" ( I am sure Ali Smith's Spring will be the next one ) and the first one that I hope will endure to be returned to later as a marker of this point in history. This worked for me in ways I had not expected it to. It’s a major achievement and I will be mulling it over for quite some time.