The Neighborhood

December 4, 2017
Llosa’s lively novel belongs in the pantheon of guilty pleasures by Nobel winners. Set in the waning years of Alberto Fujimori’s Peru, a time of “kidnappings, the curfew, blackouts, the whole nightmare,” the novel is structured as a breezy thriller but takes as its real subject the crimes and corruption of the Fujimori regime and its enforcer, the mysterious “Doctor.” It begins with Enrique Cárdenes, a wealthy engineer, receiving a visit from Rolando Garro, editor of the tabloid Exposed, regarding a salacious series of photographs of Enrique that have fallen into his possession and could be conveniently forgotten if Enrique chooses to invest in the yellow press. Outraged, Enrique violently rejects Rolando’s overture. When the photos are published and Enrique appears on the cover “naked from head to toe,” the scandal kills his reputation. When Garro turns up dead a few days later, Enrique is the prime suspect. While for most of the novel the prose is straightforward and in the manner of a page-turner, toward the end, Llosa includes an extended fugue of his trademark interweaved dialogue to great effect. Reminiscent of Pynchon’s Inherent Vice in its use of genre fiction for higher purposes, this is an audacious and skillful novel.

December 15, 2017
Sex, money, scandal, and power dance through this uneven tale of gossip and politics among the high-enders and media lowlifes of Lima, Peru.The Nobel Prize-winning author opens with two wealthy women, Marisa and Chabela, discovering the amorous benefits of their friendship. Marisa's industrialist husband, Enrique, faces blackmail in the next chapter when some nasty photos from a drunken orgy fall into the hands of a scandal-sheet editor named Garro. Enrique's problems escalate because he refuses to pay up and the photos appear in print. His wife's anger eventually subsides enough to reward him with a three-way with her and Chabela. Meanwhile side stories develop involving Garro's top reporter, Julieta, aka Shorty, and an old man named Juan whose livelihood was destroyed by Garro's media attacks. Enrique will come under suspicion when Garro is found brutally murdered; he spends a brief nightmarish time in jail. But it is Shorty who leads the book to what is often for Vargas Llosa (The Discreet Hero, 2015, etc.) the inevitable political freight when she is summoned to a session with Vladimiro Montesinos, aka the Doctor, the actual powerful head of Peru's intelligence service in the 1990s and right hand of President Alberto Fujimoro. Vargas Llosa was politically active and even ran for the presidency of his native Peru, losing to Fujimoro. There may be elements of payback in this novel, although it comes late--the historical denouement occurred in 2000--and seems superfluous given the known fates of the two officials. The story's strongest moments and characters revolve around the impoverished Barrios Altos neighborhood of Lima, especially Shorty and Juan and a few minor characters. By comparison, the lurid, telenovela lives of the wealthy supply only broad, unresolved ironies about class--in more than one definition--and some cringe-inducing sex scenes.A colorful but confusing and ultimately disappointing work by a great writer.

COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

September 15, 2017

Editor of a magazine that loves to dish the dirt, Rolando Garro publishes salacious photographs of successful businessman Enrique when he refuses to fund the magazine. Meanwhile, Enrique's wife is indulging in a supersecret affair with the wife of Enrique's best friend and lawyer. So Rolando's murder has reason to unsettle them all. Note Vargas Llosa's Essays Pick.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.