Reputations

July 4, 2016
Javier Mallarino, renowned political cartoonist, has reached the apex of his career. He’s feted at a ceremony with speeches and a commemorative stamp while his estranged wife (whom he loves) watches from the audience. But a film tribute shown during the program triggers something in the memory of another woman in the audience, unraveling several lives as the past is revisited. Mallarino is forced to reexamine, through the eyes of this woman, the very basis of his reputation, an accusation of sexual misconduct he implied in a caricature that destroyed the career of a politician and eventually led to his death. Colombia’s violent past has receded in this Bogotá-set novel; instead the author seeks to distill the nation’s collective experience into universal truths that transcend history. In McLean’s translation, Vásquez’s prose is luminous, the spooling and unspooling of his characters’ thoughts convincing and powerful. One of Vásquez’s greatest conundrums is the confluence of the public and private—how little control the individual has, how easily a life is made or ruined by events or the will of others.

Starred review from July 15, 2016
A Colombian political cartoonist has second thoughts about a takedown he delivered decades earlier.As Vasquez's spare but powerful novel opens, Javier is comfortably settled into a long career as an acclaimed satirist: luminaries pack a theater for an event celebrating his life, culminating with the announcement of a postage stamp bearing his likeness. (Even his estranged wife is in attendance.) The good feelings are wrecked the next day, however, with the arrival in his remote home of Samanta, who wants to discuss some history. Twenty-eight years earlier she was a friend of Javier's daughter, Beatriz, and one evening the pair of 7-year-olds accidentally got drunk on the dregs of the glasses at a party. The next day Javier, projecting his anxieties, drew a cartoon suggesting a congressman who attended the party was a pedophile, though he wasn't near the girls. From there, Vasquez (The Sound of Things Falling, 2014, etc.) contemplates the fickle nature of reputations and how callowness and selfishness can engineer their destruction. "Life turns us into caricatures of ourselves," Javier bemusedly observes during the celebration of his career, but as the story progresses it's clear he's spent little time thinking that he himself might be affected by a lifetime of exaggerating flaws and mocking foibles--and ignoring his own anger and neglectfulness. Samanta and Javier's investigation of the fate of the ruined congressman and his family troubles those around him: "The last thing you want to do is start asking questions," his editor tells him, a peculiar utterance from a newspaperman. Though the scope is less broad than Vasquez's other novels, it has plenty of philosophical bite, and he's savvy about our private urges to preen and elevate ourselves. A brisk and sophisticated study of a conscience in crisis.

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August 1, 2016
In this quick, disquieting read, internationally acclaimed Colombian writer Vasquez (The Sound of Things Falling, 2013) explores the reaches of the power employed almost casually by a famous and influential political cartoonist. As the novel opens, Javier Mallorino, who works for a newspaper in Bogota, Colombia, is having his shoes shined in preparation for a ceremony marking his appearance on a postage stamp. Even his beloved ex-wife, Magdalena, attends the gala, and a night spent together leaves him hoping for reconciliation. Unfortunately, this vindication of his life's work also brings to Mallorino's door a young woman whose life was irrevocably altered by the stroke of his pen. She takes him on a taste of the madeleine trip back to that critical moment. Mallorino then feels obligated to review the decisions he made and the actions he took based solely on subjective emotions and circumstantial evidence. The ripple effects from that one cartoon were devastating, and Mallorino's attempts at atonement portend dire consequences for his future. Vasquez has crafted an effective indictment of sacred cows, no matter how well-meaning and clever.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

August 1, 2016

Political cartoonist Javier Mallarino has earned a fearsome reputation; his powerful and effective caricatures are more influential than politicians themselves in ruining people's lives, rescinding laws, and toppling ministries. At a reception after a celebration honoring his 40-year career, he unexpectedly meets Samanta Leal, who reminds him of an incident that occurred 28 years earlier when an unpopular legislator, Adolfo Cuellar, may have molested her. Javier didn't wait for an investigation but instead assumed him guilty and the next day exposed the perpetrator in a cartoon, precipitating the legislator's resignation and eventual suicide. Now, looking back, he questions the veracity of the accusation and the ethics of his vocation. Vasquez explores both the environment that permits the creation of all-powerful reputations and the amoral ease with which they can be destroyed. In that fine thin line between satire and slander, are individuals responsible, or are they just pawns of the influence wielded by the media? Vasquez also uses one of his favorite themes--the power of memory--that proved so effective in his celebrated The Sound of Things Falling. VERDICT This fourth novel by one of the newest generation of Colombian writers will appeal to readers seeking a captivating and thought-provoking experience. [See Prepub Alert, 3/7/16.]--Lawrence Olszewski, North Central State Coll., Mansfield, OH

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2016

Vasquez, who likely came to your attention with 2010's scathing The Informers and certainly made your reading list with The Sound of Things Falling, the 2014 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award winner, returns with a reverberant new work about a life suddenly challenged. For four decades, the pen-and-ink creations of celebrated political cartoonist Javier Mallarino have shoved bad laws and inflated careers off a cliff. Then a young woman appears and reminds him of his buried past, and he must question everything he's done. Riverhead's only title in September and expected to be huge; so far, response has been ecstatic.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from August 1, 2016

Political cartoonist Javier Mallarino has earned a fearsome reputation; his powerful and effective caricatures are more influential than politicians themselves in ruining people's lives, rescinding laws, and toppling ministries. At a reception after a celebration honoring his 40-year career, he unexpectedly meets Samanta Leal, who reminds him of an incident that occurred 28 years earlier when an unpopular legislator, Adolfo Cuellar, may have molested her. Javier didn't wait for an investigation but instead assumed him guilty and the next day exposed the perpetrator in a cartoon, precipitating the legislator's resignation and eventual suicide. Now, looking back, he questions the veracity of the accusation and the ethics of his vocation. Vasquez explores both the environment that permits the creation of all-powerful reputations and the amoral ease with which they can be destroyed. In that fine thin line between satire and slander, are individuals responsible, or are they just pawns of the influence wielded by the media? Vasquez also uses one of his favorite themes--the power of memory--that proved so effective in his celebrated The Sound of Things Falling. VERDICT This fourth novel by one of the newest generation of Colombian writers will appeal to readers seeking a captivating and thought-provoking experience. [See Prepub Alert, 3/7/16.]--Lawrence Olszewski, North Central State Coll., Mansfield, OH

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.