Daniel Alarcon’s Lost City Radio, is just another entry into the long canon of anti-wart novels, which doesn’t make it a terrible book, but does keep it from being something that makes it stand out from that rather long list of books that show the evil that arises from violent wars and apathetic governments. Alarcon’s story in the 20 Under 40 collection actually impressed me quite a bit. It was light on politics and clichéd anecdotes of the immigrant experience in America, and provided an original and funny story about cultures clashing. While not a big highlight of the book, it did put me on notice to Alarcon’s talents. I looked forward to reading his first novel, and it had a lot of promise, but fell flat in its potential to tell its original story with the frantic action I expected it to contain. The novel is about a DJ in an unnamed country recovering from a civil war. Her radio program, Lost City Radio, helps people find loved ones who have been swallowed up by a corrupt government and a cavernous city. One day, a boy named Victor coming from a village located deep in the jungle, brings a list of names of those in the village that have been lost. She sees her husband’s name Rey, on the list. He was a dissenter who went missing ten years ago; leaving Norma left searching for clues to his whereabouts. The problem is that the book takes too many detours to describe the life of Rey, who is not nearly as fascinating as the people around him. Maybe he is supposed to Alarcon’s embodiment of himself, and I can chock it up to being a fist novel. This is definitely not a perfect novel, but if you check it out, you may like it more than I did.
Rating: 4/5
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