* * *
THIS BOOK IS A WORK OF FICTION created from many sources. It’s a product of my imagination, and also a work inspired and informed by the real life of Joe Sanderson. I quoted Joe’s letters, for the most part, with few edits, and I can’t vouch for the veracity of everything he wrote in those letters. And Joe and every other real person in this book would say they can’t vouch for the truth of all the passages I made up. I know that in trying to re-create the dreamscape of Joe’s life, I surely got some facts wrong.
Many writers are quoted and paraphrased in the text, including Claude McKay, James Joyce, W. S. Merwin, Denis Johnson and Cathy Linh Che. I also consulted the work of Christopher Okigbo and Chinua Achebe on Biafra and the Nigerian Civil War, and Mohamed Choukri’s memoir about growing up in Morocco, For Bread Alone.
* * *
WHEN YOU WRITE A BOOK, your family lives it with you, as my wife, Virginia Espino, can attest. I thank her for her patience and support during the years I worked on this book, and also everyone in the Tobar–Espino clan, including my father, Héctor E. Tobar, who read all the early drafts of this work. My son Diego offered a critical insight into an early version of the prologue, and my son Dante gave me Funkadelic and assorted advice on matters scientific and literary; and I thank my daughter, Luna, for her repeated, dutiful notetaking while I dictated words and sentences as we drove on Los Angeles streets and freeways.
At the University of California, Irvine, I owe so much to Vicki Ruiz, Louis DeSipio, Barry Siegel, Michael Szalay, and to all the great faculty there who’ve accepted me into their family. And to my former colleagues at the University of Oregon, Gabriela Martínez and Julianne Newton, and to the many faculty members who wandered into my office in Eugene as I was writing this book, including Torsten Kjellstrand (for some basic lessons on firearms), Gretchen Soderlund (for insights into Champaign-Urbana, the “Center of the Universe,”) and the late Alex Tizon.
And finally, thanks again to my longtime literary collaborators Sean McDonald and Jay Mandel; their faith in me and my work has sustained me for many years.
ALSO BY HÉCTOR TOBAR
FICTION
The Barbarian Nurseries
The Tattooed Soldier
NONFICTION
Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free
Translation Nation: Defining a New American Identity in the Spanish-Speaking United States
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Héctor Tobar is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and novelist. He is the author of the critically acclaimed New York Times bestseller Deep Down Dark, as well as The Barbarian Nurseries, Translation Nation, and The Tattooed Soldier. Tobar is also a contributing writer for the New York Times opinion pages and an associate professor at the University of California, Irvine. He has written for the Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, and other publications. His short fiction has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, Los Angeles Noir, ZYZZYVA, and Slate. The son of Guatemalan immigrants, he is a native of Los Angeles, where he lives with his family. You can sign up for email updates here.
Contents
FRONTISPIECE
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
DEDICATION
SOME INTRODUCTORY REMARKS FROM THE AUTHOR
A Statement from Our Protagonist
I. The Part About the Boy: Natural Histories
1. Urbana, Illinois, U.S.A.
2. Champaign, Illinois
3. Piatt County, Illinois
4. Kingston. Saint Elizabeth Parish, Jamaica
5. Chicago. Mexico City
II. The Part About the World: Pax Americana
6. Gainesville, Florida. Hanover, Indiana
7. Terre Haute, Indiana. Clarksville, Tennessee. Miami
8. Maroon Town, Jamaica. Kingstown, Saint Vincent. Imbaimadai, British Guiana
9. Decatur, Illinois. Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri
10. Tampico, Mexico. British Honduras. Guatemala City. The Panama Canal. Lima, Peru. Santiago, Chile. The Strait of Magellan
11. Buenos Aires. Lisbon. Paris. Tangier. Tripoli. Damascus. Jerusalem. Baghdad. Kuwait. New Delhi. Kathmandu. Kabul. Teheran. Istanbul. London
12. Lafayette, Louisiana. Los Angeles. Oakland, California. Hokkaido, Japan. Seoul. Saigon, Republic of Vietnam
14. La Paz, Bolivia
15. Cuzco, Peru. Pensacola, Florida
III. The Part About the War: Lucas
16. San Salvador, El Salvador
17. Mejicanos
18. Urbana, Illinois
19. Usulután, El Salvador
20. La Guacamaya, Morazán
21. Villa El Rosario
22. Cerro Pando. Perquín
23. El Mozote
24. Yoloaiquín. San Francisco Gotera
25. San Miguel
26. Crossing the Río Sapo
NOTES
A FEW CLOSING THOUGHTS FROM THE AUTHOR
ALSO BY HÉCTOR TOBAR
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COPYRIGHT
MCD
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
120 Broadway, New York 10271
Copyright © 2020 by Héctor Tobar
All rights reserved
First edition, 2020
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint lines from “My Mother Upon Hearing News of Her Mother’s Death” (poem) from Split, copyright © 2014 by Cathy Linh Che, Alice James Books.
Photograph of Joe Sanderson in a hammock copyright © Susan Meiselas / Magnum Photos.
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