The Blue Line

October 19, 2015
Betancourt, the Colombian politician held hostage for six years by FARC terrorists (the subject of her memoir Even Silence Has an End), attempts in her first novel to set a personal story of love, loyalty, and sacrifice against the backdrop of brutal repression during Argentina’s Dirty War of the 1970s and ’80s. Her protagonist, Julia, who has inherited the gift of foretelling the future from her grandmother, grows up in an increasingly oppressive Buenos Aires as her country witnesses the second coming of former general and soon-to-be dictator Juan Peron. She becomes active among revolutionaries who initially welcome Peron’s return, one of whom, Theodoro d’Uccello, she takes as her lover. Together they become increasingly radicalized, but Julia continues to have disturbing visions and is devastated when she fails to warn an activist priest in time to save him from being gunned down by a military assassin. Both Julia and Theo are eventually captured by death squads, but not before they conceive a child, who quite unbelievably survives Julia’s torture and imprisonment. The couple is separated while attempting to escape, and for years Julia, while raising their son, Ulysses, searches for news of Theo. The author’s narrative jumps back and forth across time, but the convoluted switches create confusion rather than depth, despite the fact that the chapters describing Julia’s capture, torture, and the camaraderie among prisoners ring frighteningly true.

November 15, 2015
Erstwhile Colombian politician Betancourt (Until Death Do Us Part, 2002, etc.) tries her hand at a kind of watery magical realism in this debut novel. Bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people. That explains why someone like Juan Peron could have returned to power following disgrace and why the generals who ruled Argentina in the 1970s and '80s could have disappeared so many men and women who simply sought justice. Julia and Theo are caught up in events. As a very young girl, Julia had learned that she could see things unfolding through the eyes of others, a kind of clairvoyance accompanied by tremors and "an irrational feeling of panic." Moreover, Julia has a touch of synesthesia, and for her, "happiness is blue," as in the place where the blue line of the sky meets that of the ocean. That's all well and good, but Julia doesn't see far enough into her own future to see that life with Theo is going to be difficult: "He wasn't handsome by any means," writes Betancourt, with the head-scratchingly vague addendum, "but he had the appeal of young people who enjoy other people's company." Life with Theo is complicated in part because he's got a wandering eye, in part because of the inquisitors who disapprove of the young couple's generously liberal politics: "Say good-bye to your youth, asshole," barks one. "When you come back you'll feel a hundred years old." Improbably, Julia and Theo make their way out of prison to the comfortable suburbs of America, where a different future unfolds. The best passages of Betancourt's novel take place behind bars, which speaks to her own well-known captivity in the hands of Marxist guerrillas. Against this, Julia's supernatural powers seem an unnecessary flourish, though clearly she's useful to have on hand if trying to dodge oncoming cars or downward-hurtling planes. The old problem of free will and predestination gets a good workout, but Betancourt's novel is less satisfying than her 2010 memoir Even Silence Has an End.

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November 15, 2015
In her first novel, Betancourt writes unflinchingly of a grim realitythe brutal abuse of political prisoners, which she herself endured as a Colombian politician held hostage for six years by the guerrilla group FARC, as recounted in her memoir, Even Silence Has an End (2010). This tale runs in two time frames. Growing up in Argentina in the 1970s, Julia contends with a strange gift. She sees future disasters unfold through the eyes of others. She and Theo, the love of her life, are drawn into the chaos engendered by the military dictatorship, the Dirty War, and the disappearance of thousands of innocent citizens. In the present, Julia, a translator grateful for her safe, American life, suspects that even after the hell they've been through to be together, Theo is unfaithful. Betancourt tells an anguished story of passion, sacrifice, imprisonment, torture, and exile with often gruesome detail, historical accuracy, and rising suspense that sweeps away narrative clumsiness. Ultimately, Betancourt orchestrates an intimate conflict and shocking denouement that fuse the personal and the political in a twenty-first-century variation on Greek tragedy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

August 1, 2015

As she recounts in her New York Times best-selling memoir, Even Silence Has an End, Betancourt was campaigning for the presidency of Colombia in 2002 when she was kidnapped by the guerrillas and held captive for six years. Her debut novel features a young woman experiencing love and betrayal during Argentina's Dirty War. With magical realist touches.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2015

This intense and harrowing novel proceeds on two related story lines separated by 30 years. The earlier story, taking place in the 1970s, follows a young Argentinian woman named Julia, who, with boyfriend Theo, is drawn into the Montoneros movement when former leader Juan Peron returns to power. As the repressive government cracks down, Julia and Theo are arrested and imprisoned and, along with many of their family and friends, brutally tortured. Some are murdered. The pair escape prison but are separated. Decades later, we find them married and living in Connecticut, and the story of how they were reunited gradually comes together. The remains of many of those who were killed in Argentina have been uncovered, though a number of perpetrators remain free. VERDICT Betancourt, the victim of a well-known, six-year-long political kidnapping in Colombia, can certainly be taken seriously as a chronicler of South American brutality and repression, and she does not turn away from the ugly truth in her fiction debut. The later story and its plot climax at times seem labored, but the novel generally propels the reader along with its conviction and moral force. [See Prepub Alert, 7/6/15.]--James Coan, SUNY at Oneonta Lib.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.