Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli
Published by 4th Estate, 2019
My rating: ⭐ ⭐
This is one of those instances in which I could see and respect a lot of what the author was trying to do, but stylistically, I just couldn’t connect with it.
The story follows a blended family as they drive across America. The parents are documentary makers, specialising in capturing sound. As they educate their kids about the Apache people (the subject of the father’s latest project), we see parallels with the present-day news stories playing out on the radio; migrant children being detained, pushed out, imprisoned, and displaced as they attempt to cross the US/Mexico border.
This is undoubtedly a timely novel, and yet it ruminates on the timelessness of humanity. I enjoyed its efforts to reflect the idea that events of the past echo throughout time (mirrored in the parents’ work with sound), and its look at the importance of documenting lives and experiences, so that we, and future generations, may learn from them. Luiselli’s prose is great at times, and she implements some fantastic imagery.
I did have a lot of issues with the execution, however. I love literature, and adore when an author can weave meaningful references to other works into their own. In this case, Luiselli shoehorns in so many references that it becomes farcical. Aside from lengthy passages of dialogue discussing books, every chapter opens with an epigraph, and some chapters literally just list book titles. It stops feeling like Luiselli is trying to draw thematic or narrative parallels, and starts to feel pretentious and self-congratulatory; a cringy effort to show-off how cultured and well-read she is. I doubt this was her intention, but it’s how it read to me.
The character development also felt off. There’s a lot of telling, rather than showing, particularly with the supposed tensions between the parents. We’re often told that they’re fighting and on the brink of a breakup, but the context of this felt lacking. The children fear that a separation would result in them being split up, thus ‘lost’ to each other. It becomes clear that this is supposed to be a thematic mirroring of the migrant children lost in the desert, but these are hardly problems of the same calibre. It all starts to feel like a terribly middle-class, privileged, and clumsy brand of empathy.
When the POV switches to that of the ten-year-old son half-way through, I found him very inauthentic as a narrator; the adult writer always visible through his words. By the time I reached the now infamous 30-page-long sentence (not a chapter, not a paragraph; a sentence), I just felt weary and emotionally disconnected.
There was also an element of expectation versus reality, which I concede is not strictly the book’s fault. I had been under the impression that the narrative would switch back and forth between the family and a group of migrant children. It doesn’t. The children, around whom the book is supposed to focus, are defined by their absence. Deliberate, yes, but a wasted opportunity, I felt. The book could have been a platform for migrant voices to shine. Arguably it is, but not at all in the way I hoped.
The aim of the book is one that I (and anyone with a shred of moral decency) can support 100%. It’s to deride the indignity of the way the current US administration treats migrants, and to highlight the country’s repeated mistreatment of those it deems ‘other’ or ‘undesirable’, by comparing what’s happening now to the experiences of Native Americans. Good intentions don’t equal a good book, however. The almost mythic quality given to the migrants doesn’t exactly help to humanise them. Nor does the rhetoric surrounding Native Americans, which seems to imply that they are resigned wholly to history books, sit very comfortably.
The number of glowing reviews for this prove that it can work in the hands of the right reader; the ability to gel with Luiselli’s singular style evidently key in connecting to the narrative. Sadly, I couldn’t.
***
You can pick up a copy of Lost Children Archive from Book Depository by clicking here. If you’ve already read it, I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Wait, a 30-page-long sentence??? Isn’t avoiding things like that writing 101?
My thoughts precisely!
Hmmmm I don’t always mind excessive intertextuality (The Friend comes to mind, she was jumping from literary reference to literary reference every other paragraph and I found it oddly exhilarating) but there’s something about epigraphs on EVERY CHAPTER that I find so off-putting. Also, a 30 page long sentence?! Dear lord.
Same! I love it when it feels like every reference adds something or has earned its place. Here, it just felt like the author was patting herself on the back (to me, at least). Lots of people seem to have loved it though, so hopefully you’ll click with it more than me!
I have been trying to read this book for weeks now. I can never convince myself to read it. There is just something about the writing that I find very difficult to connect to. But, I think once I made it through this one and Swan Song, the rest of the longlist should be breeze.
That’s very much how I felt about it too. I can understand why it’s on the longlist, given its themes, but the style just wasn’t for me, sadly.
I’ve started An American Marriage, but after that, I think I’m going to get Swan Song out the way so I can hopefully breeze though the rest as well!
I love the way you wrote your review, you have a very nice style. I was considering listening to this book but it seems like its format isn’t too good for that!
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Great review! I’d been considering this one but I might leave it for a while. Child POV is hard to nail but so tedious to read when poorly done.
Thank you! Yes, poorly handled child POV can be so jarring. I hope you click with this better than I did if and when you get round to it.
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It’s funny because I feel like I can almost see exactly where our reading experiences diverged. I thought the book lists worked to give a context for the characters, although I can see how they could easily come off as pretentious. I agree that the side-by-side comparison of a family breaking apart due to divorce and migrant children separated from their families could come across as distasteful and lacking in empathy, but to me it felt more like it was emphasizing the fact that we can acknowledge that others suffer more but are still entitled to hold our own suffering in the magnitude it hits us. While one thing may be objectively worse, they can both still subjectively earth-shattering.
I also felt like the adult tone of the child was intentional and liked it — but I also dislike realistic children’s narration for the most part, so that is veeery subjective for me. I wholeheartedly agree that Native Americans should have been acknowledged as still existing and not merely relegated to history, but I felt that demonstrated the tendency of white men (the husband) to focus on history and miss the existing present problems just because they aren’t impacted by them.
Anyway! I can absolutely see your points and understand them completely. We essentially ended up reading different things, I think, because of the way we interpreted everything. I’m sorry this didn’t end up working for you! I really enjoyed reading your review, though, and thought all your criticisms made sense.
These are all such valid points! I totally get why you engaged with this one, and like you said, it seems to be one that comes largely down to interpretation.
Whilst Luiselli’s style didn’t work for me, I wholeheartedly respect what she was doing, and actually think this is a solid contender for the shortlist 😊
I’m in a Goodreads group that chose this as a group read and there was this WHOLE THING in our discussion about whether or not we think the husband was deliberately portrayed as an Obtuse White Man, or whether his romanticization of Native American history is an extension of Luiselli’s own views. I’m leaning toward the fact that his portrayal as a dumb white dude was intentional, since the wife’s perspective felt very much like auto-fiction and I don’t think Luiselli was projecting onto the other characters in the same way, but I also feel like if this were the case, she could have maybe driven the point home a bit better?
Yes, seeing it that way does certainly change how the book is perceived! If it is the case, I wish she’d explored it more overtly.
I agree with that! If that was her intent, it was not blatantly obvious at all. I know there was a brief mention of the MC’s grandmother being a Native Mexican so I’d have to hope she had an awareness of what she was doing. Who knows, though!