Lima Nights

by Marie Arana

From a National Book Award finalist—for her memoir American Chica—and the author of the acclaimed novel Cellophane comes this spare, powerful story of sexual obsession and its consequences.

Carlos Bluhm leads the good life in upper-class he attends social functions with his elegant wife, goes out drinking with his three best friends, has the occasional, fleeting assignation. . . . Until he meets Maria Fernandez, a dancer at a tango bar in a rough part of town. The beautiful sixteen-year-old intoxicates him. An indigenous dark-skinned Peruvian, she represents everything his safe white world does not, and soon he can’t get her out of his mind. They begin a passionate affair, one that will destroy his marriage and shatter the only reality he’s ever known.

Flash forward twenty against all odds, Carlos and Maria have remained together. But when Maria finally presses for a formal commitment, feelings long suppressed erupt in a tense endgame that sends both of them hurtling toward a dangerous resolution that will forever alter their lives.

Brilliantly realized, erotic, unsentimental, Lima Nights is a unique love story and a stunning work of fiction that will reverberate long after its final page.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Latin American, Novels, Literary Fiction, Adult

Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

She was born in Peru, moved to the United States at the age of 9, did her B.A. in Russian at Northwestern University, her M.A. in linguistics at Hong Kong University, a certificate of scholarship at Yale University in China, and began her career in book publishing, where she was vice president and senior editor at Harcourt Brace and Simon & Schuster. For more than a decade she was the editor in chief of "Book World", the book review section of The Washington Post. Currently, she is a Writer at Large for The Washington Post. She is married to Jonathan Yardley, the Post's chief book critic, and has two children, Lalo Walsh and Adam Ward.

Reviews

[Sam · Rating 1 out of 5]

I picked this book up based solely on the title of an academic article, which analyzed certain elements of this novel. I wish I had read at least some of the article, so that I would have had a better idea of what this book was about before I picked it up.

This is a tale of star-crossed lovers, a wealthy-ish Peruvian businessman of German descent (Carlos) and a Native American girl (Maria) who came from a hovel. This isn't some book that's probing some deeper meaning or wrestling with deeper questions. It's simply an "odd couple" story, and it's incredibly problematic. First off, the relationship between the two main characters begins when the (married) man is 45 and the girl is 16 ("younger than his youngest son," as the book mentions several times). They meet at a night club, where she has lied about her age in order to get work. When Carlos is in the midst of this affair with a minor, he gets all up in arms about his wife wondering about where he goes and what he does (how dare she! How dare she be upset with his other friend who carries on a long-term affair under his wife's nose!).

Then, even though his wife, mother, and children leave him in an empty house after his affair is discovered, the man really appears to pay no price. He really doesn't seem to care at all (it's just whatevs, I guess). He doesn't really miss his children or regret the loss of his marriage or contact with his mother. And all of his boyhood friends are just like, "Oh, that's just Carlos."

Also, everyone is super racist. Sex with a Native American is equated to having sex with a goat. Every single Amerindian character smells bad, is uncultured, and/or is a sex maniac looking to take advantage of you. People don't ever question Carlos's decision to have an affair--they question that he had it with someone who wasn't white. No, no, no, that cannot be because the Peruvians with German blood, white skin, and blonde hair are much superior. I mean, for goodness's sake, people even say that inter-racial relationships are bad because "there is just something different between races." Really?!?

I get it--there are people who think like this, and it can be a role of literature to draw our attention to these prejudices so that we can interrogate them and (hopefully) move beyond them. But this book doesn't aim, or even attempt, to do that. No one ever defends Maria after a racist remark. Not even Carlos! No one ever remarks upon the fact that Carlos stops caring about his sons after his divorce, or that his friends know his sons better than he does. Any place outside of the Miraflores neighborhood is infernal, a hellish place overfilled with people looking to rob and kill. Again, this sort of "haves" and "have-nots" situation could be really interesting, but this is just reinforcing stereotypes. There doesn't seem to be anything particularly "Limeño" about this book either--switch out the neighborhood names and you could just as easily be discussing another city with a huge wealth gap and widespread poverty.

I picked this book up hoping to learn something about Lima in the 1980's, but I put it down disappointed and upset.

[Wisteria Leigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lima in 1986 is a pluralistic society of race, economics and social class. Carlos Bluhm, white, married and father of two sons, comes from money and lives in a mansion. Maria Fernandez, a marginalized member of the city is a Peruvian with dark-skin who lives in the slums. She struggles to survive by working two jobs. At night, Maria works in a tango bar, where she is hired to dance with the male customers. The salacious dance club is in a seedy section of the city and Carlos happens to be there one night when Maria is working. After meeting Maria he becomes obsessed with a monomaniac drive to be with her. He even goes so far as to make a comparative checklist to weigh pros and cons between Maria and his wife. The game begins as Carlos wonders what can he be thinking? In his mind he knows they are diametrically opposed in all ways.[return][return]My favorite character was Maria who demonstrated a vivacious spirit and tenacious will, with a personality full of contradictions; complex yet simple, young yet wise, childlike yet mature, poor yet rich.[return][return]This book had me flipping pages frantically expecting a great finish, as the author crafted increasing suspense. As the story ended, I felt like I ran into a brick wall. Lima Nights is a wonderful sensual love story depicting racial and class prejudice and society s intolerance. Arana s obsessive lovers, have an allure and chemistry that will steam glass with their passion.

[Lynda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read a few other reviews, and was struck by those that wrote the ending was like hitting a wall, suggesting the book ended prematurely and/or without closure. That wasn't my impression. I thought the ending - a frantic, chaotic, dangerous search for the elusive - was quite typical of the story and appreciated it wasn't a tidy nor happy ending. It was a simple story - the unraveling of a man's life because of lust, that, in the end, even he couldn't seem to reconcile. And of a young girl living in the slums of Lima who found an opportunity to get out and took it.

I appreciated the author didn't explain away, or sum up, either the confusion the characters struggled with personally and in their relationship. The undoing of their relationship was based on a misunderstanding: Maria thinking Carlos was having an affair lead her to the vidente (spanish for 'seer' - someone who predicts things that will happen in the future) and given potions to keep him in her lair; Carlos finding out and going to a vidente to counter what he believes is Maria trying to poison him after being told by the seer Maria has never loved him. That this misunderstanding became, for me, the heart of the story because the unraveling begins and the lies exposed. Except the characters continue to question what's true or not.

Just as Carlos's friends are stymied at his hysteria, so is the reader left with seeing the complexities of relationships and the author didn't patronize her readers by wrapping it up neatly in the end.

[mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

LIMA NIGHTS (2009) by Marie Arana is a story about an unlikely and unlucky relationship between a forty-something German Peruvian man (white) and a Native (brown) sixteen year-old girl, who he first sees in a dance club in 1986. The story and the relationship span twenty years, to 2006. What we are given by the author is a passionate beginning and an ill-fated end. Nothing of the twenty years the couple spends together is told, and that works because it’s essentially a story about sexual attraction, friendship, cultural bias, race, wealth and poverty, that persist timelessly throughout the lifespan. But mostly it’s a story about communication, and how the failure to talk honestly can destroy the human bond. It’s a story about how fear, anger, and jealousy can wiggle into a relationship when couples cannot express their feelings and desires openly. It’s a story about how biased “friends” and stereotypes can undermine a relationship. It’s a story about how psychiatry and shamanism—disparate ways of trying to understand and influence what is going on between couples—can both do harm without honest disclosure. It’s a story about fear of intimacy. What I took away from this well told tale was a sense of sadness—that attraction is not enough, obligation is not enough, even money is not enough. It was intriguing, honest, unsentimental, and well written. It is a refreshing change from a lot of what is being published and touted today (Happy ending Chick-lit, Boy-lit, Men’s fiction, & Women’s fiction). There are no heroes, no villains, no anti-heroes, or anti-villains, just an honest, reality based story of two people—their beginning and their end. Five stars.

[Laurie · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author does an excellent job conjuring a different time and society, set in Lima, Peru, but I had a hard time feeling sympathetic for the characters. All in all, I wouldn't recommend it, though likely because I was turned off by the fact that this older, married man was seducing a Lolita of 15, and the author tried to make it seem as though the child was equally responsible. A set of three racist, lecherous friends didn't make it more comfortable. The catalyst for the story just didn't feel right. Also, the first half of the book was extremely slow, up to the point where the main character's marriage comes unglued. Then, flash, 20 years later, his second relationship is coming apart. In the last 50 pages, I felt as though there might be deeper meaning, a la the Old Man and the Sea: the character visits a shaman who seems to supernaturally know more about him than is possible, and he encounters a stranger who seems to be leading him to newfound insights. He wants his life to tie up neatly, but it doesn't. And neither does the book.

[Margaret Palladino · Rating 4 out of 5]

really good book... also a really fast read. it keeps you going. it took about 4 days for me to read. The ending is quite depressing though, but it wouldn't have been as good of a book without it.
totally worth the read. quite interesting

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an introduction to modern Lima culture contrasts- poor and rich, indigenous and European immigrant, mystical and agnostic. Sorrowful in the impossibility of bridging these worlds. Well written, compelling.

[Lauren · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was very disappointed with this book.
It was a great premise for a story, however I feel that with the jump forward 20 years in the story, we lost the characters that had been developed at the start.

https://lozlowlibrary.wordpress.com/2...

[Steve · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is simple to the point of inanity. The characters are stereotypes and remain flat. The dialogue is stilted. I could easily believe it was the product of someone taking a college creative writing class.

[Kari King · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would've given five stars if not for the ending. The writing style was beautiful and kept me hanging on every word. I was intrigued by and invested in Maria and Carlos' relationship, both in their early years and in the second part of the book. However, the jump in the timeline was a little difficult to embrace at first. The second half of the book felt emptier (purposeful, I'm sure) and as though it lacked a certain life that the first half possessed. The abrupt and heartbreaking ending left me wishing for something more, some kind of closure, but I appreciated the realism of the falling out between lovers and how their inability to communicate and lack of a solid foundation caused an insurmountable fracture in their relationship.

[John Benson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fairly wealthy German-Peruvian man named Carlos Bluhm, married with teen-aged sons, falls in love with a young teen-aged Indigenous dancer at a night club in Lima, leading to the breakup of his marriage. The book seems like it will be a racy book based on this premise, but instead it brings out much more of the class and racial divides of Peruvian society as it follows Maria and Carlos Bluhm's lives twenty years later. They are still together but unmarried, and Maria hopes for more. Much of the book is tragic but compelling. I have read many of Marie Arana's non-fiction books over the years and found them to be very strong. It was good to see that her fiction seemed equally as strong.

[Mia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read a review of this book years ago and found it in some papers. There was a copy in my local library and I really enjoyed reading the book. I have been studying Spanish for years and have been to Lima so reading books about Spanish culture is a particular pleasure. This book is about the relationship between men and women and how culture and economics influences their lives, but the story is told in a personal and very emotional way. The characters come alive and the author is a very talented writer.

[Kate McDougall Sackler · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was just ok. It is a novel about a 40 year old man who begins an affair with a 15 year old girl and ends up ruining both their lives. Then it ends. The end. Meh.
NATO phonetic alphabet reading challenge:L-Lima

[Veronica Calvo · Rating 3 out of 5]

What happened to the ending? It just stopped :(

[Cassie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting read! Wanted a book about Lima to get excited about an upcoming trip and this did not disappoint.

[Jorie · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://joriesreads.wordpress.com/200...

[Kendall · Rating 1 out of 5]

pointless book

[liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting. Interesting, interesting, interesting. The first half reads like what I basically imagine is every man's fantasy - He meets a beautiful younger (MUCH younger) woman who really understands him, he loves her, and she actually loves him back, he risks (and loses) everything for her, but she loves him, and together they sail happily off into the sunset. I kept flipping back to look at the author photo - "Really? This was written by a woman? REALLY? I need to read her other book(s) so I can get a better idea of how she actually feels about women!" But then, in the second portion of the book that comes twenty years later, it all comes crashing back to earth. Which, I guess should be a relief given my confusion about the first half- but man, it's really sad. I mean, it CRASHES. Plus, it doesn't seem like any of the characters have grown, changed, or learned much at all. I'd still like to read something else by this author.

Only months ago, Berta Fernandez would have roused Maria from dead slumber to help with the reeking piles, but now that her girl was earning good money, she let her sleep, shushing her boys if they so much as raised their voices. "Has it ever occurred to you fat-ass losers that it's us with the tits who bring home the cash?"

[Carla Stafford · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed Marie Arana's writing style, and I quite look forward to reading more from her in the future. I hate to admit it, but I knew nothing at all of Peru before reading this book, so although this is a work of fiction, I found the violence, the racial conflict, the political issues, and the drastic difference between social classes surprising.

Carlos Bluhm is an upper class family man in Lima. Carlos comes from old money. Even though he sells camera equipment, he is able to sustain a beautiful inherited family home. He lives a quiet life with his family, going out with his friends, until one night he tangos with a young dancing girl named Maria in a Lima night club. This one event literally changes everything .

There is substantially more to the plot, but it is a relatively short novel, so I don't want to give too much away. There is a bit of a Lolita plot-line at work, (when they meet, Carlos is in his forties, Maria is 15) and Peru acts as a primary character. Peruvian history, and the ideals, politics, social classes, and moral/religious standing of it's people dictate much of the action. The antagonist, Carlos Bluhm, is a bit of an enigma to me, and to the other characters in the novel as well. The writing is colorful and intriguing.

Worth the read.

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book came to me from Elle Magazine and is defiantly not a book that I would pick up. However, that being said, once I got in about 70 pages, I was hooked and really wanted to know what happened with Carlos and Maria.

I had a hard time with the Spanish in this book, but it really added to the book. I just wish that I knew what was being said all the time. I found that I had to just read over it. I'm not familiar with customs and culture, but I found some things in this book to be very different. The fact that people are so prejudiced to others is amazing. I'm sure that this is truly the case in places around the world, but here in the U.S. everyone is so tolerant of mixed race relationships. I guess maybe that was one of the things that I found interesting about the story.

The ending was not at all what I expected. It just seemed to stop. Very suddenly and kind of left the reader to end the book in their own head. It's so hard to explain because there was a little of a conclusion, but it left a lot to the imagination.

Overall, a pretty good book. I'm glad that I had the chance to read it.

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book came to me from Elle Magazine and is defiantly not a book that I would pick up. However, that being said, once I got in about 70 pages, I was hooked and really wanted to know what happened with Carlos and Maria.

I had a hard time with the Spanish in this book, but it really added to the book. I just wish that I knew what was being said all the time. I found that I had to just read over it. I'm not familiar with customs and culture, but I found some things in this book to be very different. The fact that people are so prejudiced to others is amazing. I'm sure that this is truly the case in places around the world, but here in the U.S. everyone is so tolerant of mixed race relationships. I guess maybe that was one of the things that I found interesting about the story.

The ending was not at all what I expected. It just seemed to stop. Very suddenly and kind of left the reader to end the book in their own head. It's so hard to explain because there was a little of a conclusion, but it left a lot to the imagination.

Overall, a pretty good book. I'm glad that I had the chance to read it.

[Bookmarks Magazine · Rating 3 out of 5]

In some respects, Lima Nightsis an age-old story about the usual doomed love affair. In others, the tale is not so typical: as Arana delves deep inside her characters to explore Peru's class, social, and generational tensions, an unpredictable story unfolds. While critics disagreed about the relative success of the first half of the novel (which takes place in 1986) versus the second (the present-day story), they concurred that Arana deftly limns the relationship between Carlos and Maria and the changes and power struggles that emerge over time. A couple of critics faulted the characterizations and language ("forced and wooden," said the Rocky Mountain News), but overall, Lima Nightsis a beautiful, mournful novel about the deceptions of love.

This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arana's style has a journalistic ease. Told in 3rd person mostly from Carlos Bluhm's perspective, but with shorter chapters from Maria's, Lima Nights is the story of two unlikely people falling for each other and the arc of their relationship over a twenty-year period. So many Peruvian themes lace this story: race, gender roles and classism. The roles of brujeria and western twentieth century thinking, as well as many wonderful nuances identify and codify the particularities of Lima life. A haunting character - aside from Maria - is the old man at the beach. So many lovely layers create the depth of this story. Ultimately, however, the profound indulgence of Carlos Bluhm reminds me of any Phillip Roth male protagonist, and that realization leaves me with a heavy sadness for the persistence of self-absorbed angst as a literary theme.

[Natalie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really a very big disappointment. I loved, loved Arana's first novel Cellophane. It was richly written with a complex plot and very well-developed characters. In contrast, her second novel, Lima Nights, was more like a first draft. There wasn't a single character that was complexly rendered. The novel takes place over a span of 20 years, and the two main characters meander about not really knowing how they feel most of the time, but it didn't seem natural. It seemed as though the author wasn't sure what to do with the characters and realized there wasn't much to the plot. The ending was odd and forced. Even the writing was completely bland compared to Arana's vivid and playful writing in Cellophane.

[Kathy Garcia]

stumbled upon - while my daughter was just back from her missionary work in Trujillo, Peru - about 150 miles north of Lima - I was captured by the beauty of a "love affair gone sour" and all that entails - the element of German influences in Lima at this point in the history of the book - the descriptive in how beautiful the Ocean can be - the sadness in the way 20 years can change everyone's lives - some for the better- mostly for the worst -- no affair will ever be good - that's why they're called affairs -

[Bilbo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great story! The characters are believeable and superbly drawn, and the dialog crisp and natural. I've never been to Lima, but I could see every site in my mind as the action went on. This is a marvelous novel of forbidden love and the consequences of our actions...and because I love to dance the tango, it had a special resonance for me as I read Maria's comparison of the tango to making love. Don't miss this one!

[Natasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

WHOA sexy sexy! But even more intriguing is the character study-who are these 2 people who overhaul their lives to be with each other and why do they do it? And it's not just about these immediate characters--it's really about identity and society, and Peruvian society in Lima in particular. Even after reading it to the end, I had an unsettled feeling, like I still didn't fully understand these people. Crazy!

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book by chance at the public library. This story was great. The story is of Carlos(mid 50s) and his affair with 16 year old Maria. They are both from Lima but she is a "dark skinned Indian" -- a "chola" and he is not. This affair causes his wife to leave him with their children and HIS mother. To find out the rest, read this book. Hint: Be careful what you wish for -- you just might get it.

[Herzog · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not a book I would normally have read, but was recommended to me by a friend in anticipation of an upcoming trip to Peru. That said, it was engrossing, if somewhat uncomfortable. Carlos's motivation for his attraction to Maria in unclear (though that's part of the book's attraction). The 20 year jump to part 2, as well as the style itself, were well-executed. I'm not certain if the book gave me a great deal of insight into Peru, but it was an enjoyable read.

[Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this in about two hours. I liked the perspective changes, and yay for Germany and all, but I failed to see a point. And maybe that was the point. My mood at the end was not good, so that might have influenced my overall thoughts.

Not my favorite; do not read for an uplifiting time. This is not a romance.