The Sound of Things Falling

An Amazon Best Book of the Month, August 2013: Juan Gabriel Vasquez will draw comparisons to other major Latin American icons. But while the influence of Roberto Bola o, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Gabriel Garc a M rquez are present throughout his second novel, The Sound of Things Falling, he is a unique literary talent. Translated from Spanish (and exceptionally well, at that), Vasquez moves swiftly and subtly, opening in Bogota, Colombia, reflecting on the mid- 70s when the country was being taken over by drug lords and cartels (fueled by the U.S. s hunger for cocaine). Law professor Antonio Yammara finds his fate intertwined with that of a shady ex-pilot named Laverde. But Things Falling is so much more than a drug story. This is a sensory novel. Antonio wrestles with the way he interprets by his surroundings, by how the external world affects the internal. [I]t s always disconcerting to discover, when it s another person who brings us the revelation, the slight or complete lack of control we have over our own experience. The Sound of Things Falling does so much at once: it s a novel about how the U.S. dangerously influences Latin America, how the present never escapes the past, and how fragile our relationships--romantic and familial--can be. --Kevin Nguyen