The Lucky Ones: A Novel

by Julianne Pachico

Set during the peak of Colombia’s drug-fueled conflict, and in New York City, this captivating, kaleidoscopic debut novel centers on a group of high school girls and the people whose lives touch theirs—including their parents, teachers, housekeepers, and the warlords and guerrilla fighters who surround them.

While her parents are away for a holiday weekend in the mountains around Cali, a teenager finds herself home alone for the first time, with the household help mysteriously gone, no phone connection, and news of an insurgency on the radio—and then she hears a knock at the door. The girl’s teacher recites Shakespeare in the jungle to a class of sticks, leaves, and stones, while his captors watch his every move. Another classmate, having escaped Columbia for the clubs of New York, is unable to forget the life she left behind without the help of the little bags of powder she carries with her. Taking place over two decades, The Lucky Ones presents us with a world in which perpetrators are indistinguishable from saviors, the truth is elusive, and people you love can disappear without a trace.

A prismatic tale of a group of characters who emerge and recede throughout the novel and touch one another’s lives in ways even they cannot comprehend, The Lucky Ones captures the intensity of life in Colombia as paramilitaries, guerillas, and drug traffickers tear the country apart. Combining vivid details of life under siege with a hallucinatory feel that befits its violent world, The Lucky Ones introduces a truly original and exciting new voice in fiction.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Audiobook, Historical

253 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 7, 2017

About the author

Julianne Pachico was born in 1985 in Cambridge, England. She grew up in Cali, Colombia, where her parents worked in international development as agricultural social scientists.

In 2004 she moved to Portland, Oregon, where she completed her B.A. at Reed College in Comparative Literature. In 2012 she returned to England in order to complete her M.A. in Prose Fiction at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, where she was a recipient of UEA's Creative Writing International Scholarship.

She is currently completing her PhD in Creative and Critical Writing at UEA on a fully funded fellowship. She had a short story on the long list for the Sunday Times Prize, and is also the only writer to have two stories in the 2015 anthology of the Best British Short Stories. Her short stories have been published by The New Yorker, Lighthouse, Litro, Shooter Literary Magazine and Newwriting.net, among others. She holds dual citizenship in the U.S. and the U.K.

Reviews

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I freely admit to loving this trend of connecting stories to tell a whole. This book centers on a group of wealthy school girls and the people that surround the. Taken together we get a candid look at Columbia during the height of their most terrible times. Filled with images of the drug wars, drug lords, paramilitary and insurgents, and the naivety of youth, these stories span two decades in this often dangerous environment. As we read we recognize a name from a past story, or a situation told from multiple viewpoints, there are some surprises, moments of terror and the aftereffects of violence.

These are an impressive grouping of stories, each story can stand alone and some have been published before, but taken together they form an outstanding debut collection. One story that I can't seem to get out of my mind is that of a professor, once the girl's teacher, now taken prisoner and held in the Columbian jungle. By day he teaches Shakespeare, under armed guard, to a grouping of twigs and leaves that he has assembled. He imagines their questions and answers them back. Touching and horrific at the same time. A very good first book from a new author to watch.

[Liz · Rating 2 out of 5]

This isn't an easy book to read. It's more like a collection of intertwining short stories than a comprehensive story. Each chapter captures a different character and a different time. All deal with the time of the Columbian drug wars, taking place either in that country or NYC. They are inter-connected - the man in the second chapter is the English teacher of the girl in the first, another girl is the daughter of friends of the first girl’s parents, the childhood friend of this girl grows up to be the leader of the guerillas. On and on, each character portraying a different segment of the society. The connections are mostly done as remembrances of each other. Although I can’t begin to explain how the rabbits addicted to cocoa leaves fit in.

I struggled with the title. The Lucky Ones. Really? The characters seem anything but. In one chapter, a lucky one is defined as one left alive, despite being cut open. And while the writing was decent, the story or should I say stories just didn't draw me in. Typically, a book like this would interest me because it's about a part of history I don't know a lot about. But there wasn't even enough concrete history to make it interesting. The book felt disjointed and only half baked, more like a dream with gossamer bits of a story. Others have raved over this, so bear in mind my opinion is in the minority. I don't do well with anything surreal and this is definitely surreal.

Bottom line: if you're the type of reader who is content with characters that show up and inhabit 20 or so pages and then disappear never to return, you'll probably like this book. That's not me. I want characters I can invest time and feeling in. And I want to know what becomes of them.


My Thanks to netgalley and Spiegel & Grau for an advance copy of this book.

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nobody seems particularly lucky in The Lucky Ones – not the teenager who declines a country house party invitation and finds herself alone with a menacing man right outside the door, not her former eight-grade teacher who is held prisoner and pontificates on Hamlet to the sticks and leaves, not Mariela, cruelly nicknamed Fatty by her peers who now exacts revenge on troops and prisoners and certainly not her father, a big wig executive who profits from the illegal drug trade.

Its blurb calls it a “literary jigsaw puzzle” and indeed, that’s what it is – interweaving stories that stand by themselves with each of them playing a crucial role in creating a satisfying whole. Populated by privileged schoolgirls and their teachers, housekeepers, squadrons of self-dubbed revolutionaries, and even anthropomorphic drug-addicted rabbits, we get to explore the intersecting lives of those in Cali during the prime years of the conflict there.

A minor character suddenly appears in a major role in another chapter or a major character becomes a sidekick. Gradually, the novel takes its own shape and what a shape it is! “Good guys” and “bad guys” blur; loved and loveless merge; and always, there’s that moment when fingers are axed off or when there’s a knock on the door.

Julianne Pachico is great at creating atmosphere and in lulling her readers to explore a surreal world where rules are topsy turvy and where survival isn’t guaranteed. I thought this was an excellent book that captivated my imagination from the very first page.

[Justkeepreading · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to Netgalley. A massive, massive thank you to Faber and Faber for granting my wish to read this book and to Julianne Pachico for the opportunity to read this book for an honest review.

This is a MUST BUY MUST READ for ALL.

You will find my review on Goodreads from today under Karen Whittard and on Amazon on publication date under k.e.whittard.

This is a truely captivating read. I devoured it in one setting. This really is a literary jigsaw of a read. Julianne is a master of her craft.

Set in Columbia during the drug fuelled Conflict and also in New York.

It centres on a group of high school girls and the people who touch their lives. Parents, teachers, housekeepers even some warlords and guerrilla fighters.

This book is really a trip of your imagination and I think that's why it appealed to me so much. It felt like we really had gone on a journey together. The young people in this book are really anything but lucky. In a world where perpetrators are indistinguishable from saviours. Where finding out the truth is impossible and where people you live disappear without a trace. It is a story of how we can touch other people's lives without knowing anything about it. A true journey of a book. Julianne is a master craftswoman.

Happy reading everyone

[switterbug (Betsey) · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Colombian conflict lasted over half a century, pitting the government against guerilla groups, paramilitary factions, drug syndicates, and splinters from each party. The voices of the innocent victims, often children or teachers, are part of what makes up the narrative in Pachico’s novel. If it seems confusing at times—i.e. not being able to definitively point out the violent perpetrators and tyrants from the tagalongs and paper tigers, or the reason for the inclusion of grade-school antics and class bullying, the narrative can be parsed best when accepting that it isn’t linear. This post-modern and surreal story could conceivably begin or end with any chapter. It takes place alternately between 1993-2018, set in Colombia and sometimes the U.S.

Often, characters appear in more than one chapter (each chapter a different and overlapping narrative voice) in greater or lesser presence. The prismatic lens that defines the author’s style portrays these people at different times/ages of their lives. One chapter, such as the American teacher, (dubbed “the profe”), has been a prisoner for 15 years in a remote place with few people (other than the guards) to converse with. He has understandably lost some mental stability, yet, ironically, in order to hang on to any vestigial shreds of memory, he daily relives, scene by scene, the event in Cali where he was captured, as well as reflecting on events of when he was a free man. From memory and a journal, he teaches literature to a class represented by inanimate objects that are now anthropomorphic to him. The profe’s relationship with the guards indicates that there is certainly some curiosity and compassion on both sides.

Pachico is masterful at mingling tragedy with levity. In one chapter, rabbits with human-like qualities are addicted to coca leaves, which is both absurd and yet symbolic. To me, they represented the cocaine drug trade that influenced the war (or conflict), which is especially demonstrated toward the end of the chapter, highlighting the vacillating stronghold of the drug wars. Some of the most poignant maxims came from this section—“You’re born a certain way, grow up to play a certain role, and that’s it, you’re you, unchangeable.” This maxim funnels fluidly into the chapters on childhood play and the ordered divisions based on class, beauty, and intelligence decided by the children. From youth to adulthood, certain characteristics remain steadfast. The privileged kids, even amidst the war on their periphery, can be cruel and exclusive on their own myopic battlefields, with only a few crossing the lines.

As the chapters gradually pieced together a narrative whole, I felt a closer intimacy with not just the cast, but also the setting. The Columbian conflict was a disturbing amalgam of events, groups, and motivations, contiguous in years but divided in alliances. Those affected were all classes and members of society. Pachico gives voice to the entitled AND the marginalized, in a unique blend of caterwauling and fragmented voices that mesh together in a story of a decades, bloody war (conflict).

[Gabril · Rating 4 out of 5]

I Montoya, i Mendoza, i Vasquez, i Lorenzo, gli Smith. Le famiglie dove vivono le ragazze più fortunate della Colombia : Stephanie, Mariela, Betsy, Katrina, La Flaca . Sono figlie di diplomatici, politici, imprenditori (ma in realtà? Narcotrafficanti di lusso, supponiamo: “Eccoli che arrivano. Uno scalpitio di tacchi neri e blu, giacche appese alle braccia, ciocche di capelli sempre più radi pettinate all’indietro con cura. Gli autisti parcheggiano sotto i fichi le jeep targate Bogotà e imbrattate di fango; le guardie del corpo escono fuori e incrociano subito le braccia, aleggiando già sullo sfondo.”); vivono in isole dorate, ranch con piscina, hanno autisti a disposizione, frequentano scuole esclusive. Sono viziate, instabili, a volte tra loro crudeli. Sono ragazze per certi versi normali eppure sono misteriose, come misteriosa per noi europei è la realtà colombiana, di cui ben poco sappiamo e di cui ben poco trapela.
E così, attraverso la descrizione di Julianne Pachico, ci muoviamo circospetti nella foresta labirintica di questa realtà minacciosa a noi così lontana. Fra i racconti intercorrono legami: situazioni o personaggi costituiscono il filo che lega una storia all’altra (devo esser sincera: pur apprezzando la densità di ogni storia ho faticato a tenere insieme i protagonisti e le trame, credo proprio per la mancanza di dimestichezza con quella dimensione umana e sociale così straniante).
L’altra faccia delle adolescenti più fortunate sono i ragazzi poveri, naturalmente destinati alla guerriglia e alla resistenza armata, ma anche i sequestrati, gli scomparsi, di cui spesso non si sa ma si presume la fine.
Anche il tempo cronologico dei racconti è variabile e copre il periodo compreso tra la fine degli anni 90 e l’inizio del Duemila e lo spazio si apre dai distretti della Colombia verso gli Stati Uniti, luogo del desiderio, del riscatto o della perdizione, dove alcune ragazze si trasferiranno.
Non tutti i racconti sono realistici: l’elemento simbolico e onirico è evidentemente connaturato allo stile narrativo sudamericano.
La varietà di temi e di stili, la lucidità dello sguardo, il caleidoscopio delle situazioni e dei tipi umani, i risvolti un po’ horror e un po’ surreali fanno di questo esordio della giovane Pachico un prodotto narrativo già maturo e consapevole.

[flaminia · Rating 4 out of 5]

quando i protagonisti di un libro passano di racconto in racconto ed è tutto un anda e rianda a spasso nel tempo, in genere vengo colta dall'incoercibile bisogno di scaraventare il libro contro il muro e ricoprire l'autore di contumelie varie. con le più fortunate non è stato così, anzi: più andavo avanti, più ero affascinata e ammirata; non mi ha lasciato scampo, sospeso e terribile, un po' come la tigre invisibile che si aggira per casa in bestiario, solo che al posto della tigre qui c'è la guerra.

[Alena · Rating 4 out of 5]

When a book is described as "drug fueled" I think of something fast paced with wild mood shifts. This debut is drug fueled in a very different way. These interconnected short stories (a style I love by the way) tell the slow, aching truth of the tragic consequences of Columbia's unrest/insurgencies/drug wars/kidnappings at the turn of the 21st century. Primarily focused around the female students of a private wealthy school, each story stands on its own as a stinging rebuke of that world. Together they are a poignant look at innocence, security and the long reach of personal and national trauma.
Sad and beautiful, I learned about a cultures and country I hadn't read about before. It's brave in style and storytelling and, ultimately, a very rewarding read.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award shortlist review #3
(I am on the official shadow panel of book bloggers.)

(4.5) Marketed as a novel in America but as a short story collection in the UK, The Lucky Ones is really somewhere in between: it’s a linked story collection in which the 11 chapters could stand alone but are so much richer together. Each generally adds a layer of meaning to the others by filling in the background or following a certain character a decade or more into the future. The book keeps creeping backward and leaping forward to show how terror endured in one’s past never really goes away.

The title certainly seems ironic, as many of the schoolmates, teachers and hangers-on who people these Colombia-set stories face imprisonment, torture or disappearance. The story titles, too, seem innocuous, even sweet. But the first story, “Lucky,” sets the precedent for things turning very dark very fast. Stephanie Lansky’s family leaves for a weekend party at the Montoyas’ country house, but teenage Stephanie stays home, planning to smoke in secret and meet up with a friend at the mall. Scary snatches of radio dialogue about Communist rebels and bombs contrast with her escapist re-reading of Arthurian romances, but the threat becomes real when a man comes to the door to get her. With the maid missing and her parents not answering their phones, she’s effectively a hostage in her own home. The open-ended conclusion is masterly; its “could be,” “maybe” and “It’s still possible” phrases leave the reader to wonder whether Stephanie will be one of the lucky ones or not.

The stories range from 1993 to 2013, and over those two decades we zoom in and out to visit some of Stephanie’s classmates and teachers. For instance, in “Lemon Pie,” my favorite individual story, her teacher, Mr. B., is now a prisoner in a jungle camp and nourishes what little sanity he has left by teaching his old Hamlet lesson plans to groups of leaves and sticks. In the next story, “M + M,” we meet another of Mr. B.’s pupils, a scholarship student who fell out spectacularly with a friend over their differing class status. Ten years later, he’s a guerrilla commander so harsh that he orders deserters executed by their friends.

Seven of the stories are in the third person, but others add in some interesting variety: in “Siberian Tiger Park,” the third graders of Stephanie’s class form a first-person plural voice as they set their vivid imaginations loose on the playground and turn against their former ringleader, and “The Bird Thing,” a slice of horror in which a maid’s traumatic memories feed a monster, is told in the second person. And then there’s “Junkie Rabbit,” a first-person story set among a coca-consuming colony of pet rabbits gone feral. It’s Watership Down on speed. Indeed, drug use and wildness are recurring tropes, and there’s a hallucinatory quality to these stories – somewhere between languid and frantic – that suits the subject matter.

Before starting this I knew nothing about the relatively recent conflict in Colombia. It’s estimated that there were 60,000 forced disappearances on top of the documented carnage. We meet one character who has his hand chopped off for “publishing the wrong kind of articles,” but the country’s atrocities usually show up in asides, woven in so subtly and elegantly that they’re among the most arresting passages in the book:

On Saturdays … you got to run to the riverside, slide down the bank, and go swimming or throw stones or try to catch tiny silver fish with your bare hands, then feed them leftovers from lunch. Except when the bodies were floating in the water. Rumor was that men always floated face up, women face down. Sometimes there were vultures sitting on them and sometimes not. But if there were bodies, you would just go to the little stream instead and that was better. There the fish would eat rice straight from your hand, grains floating through the water like confetti thrown at a wedding.

Almost every story has at least one paragraph that striking. I thought two stories added less than the others and might have been cut to get the page count down closer to 200, but for the originality of the setup and the sheer excellence of the writing this book can’t be topped.

Originally published, with images, on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Bonnie Brody · Rating 5 out of 5]

Julianne Pachico may be a newcomer to the literary scene but her debut novel is a tour de force. On the surface it deals with the horrific times in Colombia when FARC, paramilitary groups, splinter groups and the military itself are creating havoc and terror for the residents of the country. The novel takes us from 1993 to 2013 as it explores the impact of terrorism on various Colombians. Some reside in cities and are wealthy beyond imagination. Others are prisoners in the jungle, marching from one location to another. Still others are the kidnappers, stealing people from their homes.

There is Martin, a scholarship student who later becomes a terrorist, remembering the way he was treated with disdain by the wealthy students in his school and how he was betrayed by his one friend. The Professor, once an English teacher but now a prisoner of FARC, is from the United States. He came to Colombia to teach in an elite private school. He now spends his days in the jungle teaching Shakespeare to trees and flora, reminiscing about his past life in carefully doled out time limits.

My favorite chapter is about the rabbit junkies, an amazing and hallucinatory metaphor for those addicted to cocaine and how the coca leaves come to control one's life.

There is not one misplaced word or sentence. The book deals with the horror of terrorism with a gritty and painful reality. The novel goes back and forth in time and focuses on different people whose lives are interconnected in some way at some point in time. Some of the characters live in Colombia and others have left to pursue their lives in the United States. The protagonists are children, adults, rich, poor, and even animals. Nothing is sacrosanct for Pachico. Originally from Cali, she now resides in the United Kingdom. If I were a betting woman, I would say that she has experienced some of these situations first hand. I can't praise this novel enough. It has spoken to me in a profound way and will remain with me for some time.

[Røbert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was lucky to get a proof copy of this book at a book festival event, and raced through it in less than a day, such was the compelling writing and desire to see the various threads fit together. The book is somewhere between a novel and short stories -- what you read are non-chronological episodes in a set of characters' lives, as the focus changes and other characters fall into the background. Set mainly in Colombia, the book mainly follows children and teachers in youth and grownup, the long and violent political upheaval making its presence felt, despite their privileged backgrounds. If I hadn't been given a proof copy, this subject matter would have drawn me to it and set it apart from the potential reads.

I found it almost as compelling as Pond by Claire-Louise Bennett (set to be my favourite read on 2016) -- whilst the themes are very different, the framework of a set of closely linked short stories is one which seems to have plenty of as-yet untapped riches. It looks like Faber have stuck the word "novel" on the cover, which will make it eligible for next year's Booker Prize -- I certainly feel the book deserves both critical acclaim and a wide readership and wish it and its author well when it is published early next year.

[Heather Fineisen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Told in a series of interconnected stories, The Lucky Ones follows the not so lucky. From a kidnapped professor who teaches Hamlet to twigs to stay sane to a cocaine leaf addicted rabbit, Pachico creates an imaginative yet poignant narrative exploring the political and social climate Colombia. Stunning as a debut, a favorite for the year that I read in one day.

Copy provided by publisher and Net Galley.

[Alexa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I finished this but only because I had invested so much time in it already. The first story lulled me into a sense of security and I really enjoyed it. I also really enjoyed the next one about the teacher who was beginning to go crazy in captivity and began teaching “alternative children.” The rest of the stories were meh. The crazy train derailed at Watership Down on drugs and I should’ve stopped there because I half read/half skimmed the rest of it because it wasn’t making sense to me anymore and I was beyond caring. Obviously I am in the minority on this one, it looks like several people really enjoy it. I am not one of them. The stories are very well written, I enjoyed the author’s style. The content just wasn’t for me.

[☽ Sono sempre vissuta nel castello Chiara · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://hosemprevissutonelcastello.wo...
La guerra civile in Colombia tra guerriglieri e paramilitari ha segnato la storia della nazione degli ultimi decenni. Julianne Pachico attraverso lo sguardo di un gruppo di ragazze privilegiate ci racconta una realtà intrisa di violenza; le più fortunate non sono in definitiva risparmiate nemmeno loro, vittime di una guerra che non salva nessuno. Con i personaggi che ricorrono il libro riesce ad avere un’unità, che poteva però se gestita meglio essere ancora più forte; lo stile anche varia da racconto a racconto ma non abbastanza da stupire. Tra pregi e difetti il merito è di aver creato una testimonianza che non lascia indifferenti. Per saperne di più la recensione è quello all'inizio.
P.s i racconti più belli sono gli ultimi

[Lolly K Dandeneau · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Some things don’t ever deserve to be told.”

We come upon the characters in this novel in a sort of disarray of time. Usually I am bothered by disorder in a novel, wait, is this the present or the past? But it worked here. In a war torn country, memories torture the survivors and time doesn’t much seem like a straight line anyway. The reader doesn’t really know for fact who the bad or good guys are, because all seem a bit of both. Military, drug lords, privileged schoolgirl darlings- all we know is even those privileged can’t hide behind their money. In the first of the collection of interconnected stories that create this novel, it is 2003 and young Stephanie remains behind as her parents go to a party in the mountains. Costing her maid Angelina her day off, their interactions reveal the reek of being spoiled. As Stephanie snidely orders Angelina about, there is no need to question who the ‘Lucky Ones’ are, but that’s about to change. A menacing man will disrupt her plans in ways she couldn’t imagine when she declined the party with her family. That entitled attitude is about the crumble in the horror of reality.

When the readers encounter an American, former English teacher clinging to sanity as he teaches a vine covered ceiba tree, leaves, sticks, branches, and the river stones- the sheer terror of his situation is hard to miss. A prisoner now, but for what? Why? What is to become of him? His only anchor is to continue on as if he is still teaching students. His skin is infected and his mind. Something about this particular story endeared me the most to him. A teacher’s purpose is simply to engage young minds, nothing criminal and yet how did he end up here? Why did he come?

Former students remember cruelties, and they are ugly! Some get their revenge, and chose drastic life paths. Others we meet in America, remembering Columbia like a distant dream or nightmare, depending on how the light hits their memories. This novel is populated by characters that are vastly different in their status. Where one is living a life with wealth beyond imagining others are struggling in the worst poverty, some are trying to cling to their dignity in their horrific situations but all of them merge in the chaos of civil war in their country. The stories felt terribly real. Some moments are rotten, some are commonplace bullying so many kids go through, others are unfathomable for those of us living in a country without such civil strife. Such a strange novel, and yet wonderful. All the characters are prisoners of time, their own breaking mind, the past and their memories, or of war itself.

Publication Date: March 7, 2017

Random House Publishing

Spiegel & Grau

[Trang Tran · Rating 3 out of 5]

The marketing campaign describes it as “a jigsaw puzzle”. Oh my god. Hell yes it was! Julianne Pachico not only tells a single story but many stories from different point of views and… in the same chapter. It was very confusing to me. I never knew who the narrator was or how it changed from one event to another, and slowly, it started to only make sense after a few chapters. I think the fact that it was all over the place ruined the reading experience for me.

I have to admit it was fun in the first few chapters to guess and make the connections between the characters. Unfortunately, when you leave me hanging for a very long time and you don’t EVER talk about the plot holes, it bothers me A. LOT. After all, the point of the suspense is to incite the readers to keep reading and get the answers in the end.. right? Nooope. Not with this novel.
The 3 stars are for the creativity of the author to conceive the Colombian struggle through the eyes of different set of characters and personalities. The War Drugs, The Guerilla, the massacre. We have a kidnapped teacher who keeps on teaching to branches and rocks (By the way, I didn’t read Hamlet to this day, so the fact that there was a chapter with a few pages analysis of Shakespeare’s piece has utterly spoiled all the story for me… #bookworm trigger), the bullied who later becomes the terrorists and many more. Julianne Pachino had in mind a great concept but I think the execution issue needed to be addressed.

Of course, we can’t deny the facts that Colombia has undergone one of the most violent and brutal events of all time and I admire the author for talking about it. She addressed the gap between the elite and the dispossessed citizens but in the end, everybody suffers and no one really wins. The Lucky Ones is an ironic title because no one is really lucky in this novel.

Full review here: https://bookidote.com/2017/04/02/the-...

Trang - Book Blogger and Book reviewer

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wasn't enjoying this book per se, but it was going along inoffensively enough for me to keep reading when something very strange happened. There was a scene, told from the perspective of rabbits, where an older rabbit just ejaculates everywhere. Literally just jizzes in the middle of the scene. I was pretty much over the book at that point. It was off-putting to say the very least.

As for the rest of the book (which bills itself as a novel, but is written in the now inescapable style of interwoven short stories), it was mostly unremarkable. The first two stories were the best written, but the rest range from boring to "why??".

[Lucas Sierra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hace ya un mes que lo leí y los cuentos de Pachico permanecen. Hay algo aquí, no sé bien qué. Por momentos su prosa era potentísima, en otros caía en el lugar común del privilegio imaginando el conflicto. Entre ambos extremos, sin embargo, me decanto por el primero: en muchos casos el ejercicio literario de Pachico es nítido y rompedor, además de arriesgado en cuanto a entrar en temas que por lo general se han abordado sólo desde la narrativa testimonial (con todas las limitaciones que eso supone). Creo que volveré a Los afortunados y estaré pendiente de la autora. Me interesa ver más cosas suyas. Me interesa saber que alguien está narrando esto así.

[Lucy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book, it was one I was fascinated so much with that I didn’t want to put it down. I’ve learned a lot about Columbia in this time period that I didn’t previously know about which is good. I also liked the overall message of the story. My favourite chapter was probably M&M.

My criticisms is only that it’s hard to follow at times. Since we are moving through time and different characters, sometimes the characters names aren’t mentioned or animals are used to reference whats happening and it does get quite confusing. Also I kind of wanted to know more about where the characters ended up and there isn’t really many answers for that.

This isn’t a book I would typically read but I’m glad I gave it ago because it was different reading experience for me.

[Dane Cobain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I was sent a copy of this book for free to review as part of my position on the Young Writer of the Year Award shadow panel.

This is the first of the five books that I’ve read so far from the Young Writer of the Year Award shortlist, and it sets a strong precedent that it’s going to be tricky for the others to live up to. What we have here is a collection of short stories that span several decades and take place in Latin America, and it’s interesting because it’s kind of interconnected and kind of not, with a few running themes like coca leaves that tie them all together.

Pachico’s writing is stunning, and just the way she strings sentences together was a joy to behold. Flicking in at random, I get: “They cast their bluish-white searchlights over the campsite, slowly illuminating one item at a time; the wooden picnic table, the hammocks, the tin cups, the black rubber boots with yellow bottoms, the packets of Frruitino strawberry juice powder, the Saltine cracker wrappers, the enormous blocks of unrefined panela sugar in plastic bags.” There’s just something about her writing style that I loved.

Overall, it was fun and ethereal, and I’ve since compared it to watching someone else’s dreams and said it reminded me in some vague way of William Burroughs. It’s most definitely a tough act to follow.

[LuisAdri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Parece no quedarme claro, si es una novela entre relatos, o mejor lo dejo en que son cuentos conectados entre sí, por el hilo, un único hilo, los recuerdos que van y vienen, o quizá mantienen en el transcurso de la vida, desde una infancia que se mantiene inerme en la memoria.

Es un libro algo complejo de leer, deben irse entrelazando los sucesos, las épocas, hay que ser cuidadosos en mantener la historia, el momento en que llega cada historia, los cambios de personajes, del narrador. No dejar de lado cada señal, cada nota, aparecerá en la nueva historia.
Mi percepción, es que estos cuentos nos muestran varias acciones que se quedan en las gentes, detrás de la violencia en sus distintas maneras, no hace falta la narración delicada de la violencia ensangrentada y llena de horrores; porque quizá lo que sucede es que el libro puede plantear o dejarnos al imaginario, quienes realmente son los afortunados, ¿los que han sobrevivido?, ¿o son los que han creado la historia real.?

Me digo los cuentos en su realidad, nos expone animales, representado los peores vicios de la humanidad, todos los actores de esta época guerrillas, paramilitares, mercaderes de la droga, hijos que desde su inocencia nos muestran lo imperceptibles que son los detalles y que pueden verse involucrados en este mundo que roza su niñez y perdurara hasta su adultez sin que realmente sepan que sucede, como si nos dijera algo no esta en su lugar, pero a mi no me afecta.
Se reconoce en sus personajes, lo vulnerables la soledad , los miedos, sus debilidades y culpas, inclusos sus sueños.
Hay un actor cercano, que entrelaza , que es como un talisman, nunca se ausenta, La hoja de coca, oculto pero onmipresente.

Creo que hay mucho por decir, me parece, como también que se debe decir con cuidado, así con las frases construidas que Pachica, nos dejan para que elucubremos sobre los sucesos y el como marcan a generaciones una tras otras, sin que realmente llegue a borrarse de la historia conjunta.
Me siento agradecida de conocerla, de haberme dado a la tarea de leerla con paso lento esperando haber captado las señales de la realidad de mi país.

[German Chaparro · Rating 5 out of 5]

A pesar de que este libro está en inglés, y de que no existe (hasta ahora) una edición en español, esta reseña será en español. La razón es porque me atrevería a decir que este es el primer gran libro de literatura colombiana escrito originalmente en inglés.

Su estructura es similar a otros libros de cuentos que comparten un universo y una época, en este caso la Colombia de los 90s a los 10s. Si bien la colección es heterogénea en cuanto al tono y el alcance de cada cuento, en el fondo de la mente se va formando gradualmente una imagen muy vívida del mundo del libro, que en mi caso (y supongo que para mucho otros colombianos también) se antoja muy familiar. En cada uno de los cuentos Julianne Pachico transmite su gran dedicación al oficio a través de la precisión y elegancia de su prosa. También se nota la cercanía de la autora a la escenografía y a las sensaciones que trae haber crecido en Colombia en los años 80s y 90s.

Como lo mencioné antes, el tono varía mucho a través de la colección, lo cual oscurece un poco (en un par de cuentos) la manera como las diferentes piezas se unen. Si bien es un poco desgastante para una primera lectura, quedé con muchas ganas de volver a leer el libro para tener una idea más completa de la línea de tiempo y las interrelaciones entre los personajes. Sin embargo, través de todos los cuentos, Julianne Pachico logra mantener una voz fuerte y personal, y una buena coherencia temática. Se nota también una meticulosa preparación del guión detrás de cada cuento (excepto tal vez en el último, que me pareció un poco apurado).

En mi opinión, una debilidad del libro es la ausencia de arcos para los personajes. Pienso que esto se debe a este formato de colección de cuentos, en donde los personajes de cuentos anteriores no se repiten por fuera de menciones o recuerdos de los personajes de turno. Ni siquiera los cuentos que son muy centrados en un solo personaje (p. ej. "Honey Bunny") alcanzan a mostrar más que una sección corta de las vidas de los personajes. No puedo evitar hacer la comparación con "This is How You Lose Her" de Junot Díaz, que a pesar de ser también una colección de cuentos, muchos de éstos comparten el personaje de Junior en diferentes planos (a veces de cerca, a veces de lejos) en distintas etapas de su vida, lo cual hace que uno como lector se vea comprometido emocionalmente a través del libro así las historias sean distintas.

Pero bueno, este libro es su propia cosa, lo cual merece todo mi respeto y admiración. Es familiar pero universal, y también es crudo y chocante cuando se necesita. Julianne Pachico tiene una voz muy fuerte, muy personal, que espero seguir leyendo en el futuro.

4.5 estrellas (redondeadas a 5)

[Carmen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sono partita senza alcun pensiero, pregiudizio o aspettativa verso questo libro, perché non conoscendolo non sapevo esattamente cosa andassi a leggere. Ho iniziato a leggerlo guidata da una semplice curiosità. Al secondo e al terzo racconto sono stata completamente rapita.
L’autrice ha una capacità stilistica fantastica. Ogni racconto è strutturato in maniera diversa, non ci sono pagine che si “somigliano”. Si passa dalla terza alla seconda persona narrativa, dal punto di vista di una domestica, a quello di una bambina, fino a quello di un topo. Unica pecca (perché ricordiamoci che è un romanzo d’esordio) è che mi è sembrato un po’ incompleto. Mi aspettavo un finale più incisivo, dove i pezzi del puzzle risultassero, se non completi, quanto meno più vicini.
È stata comunque una bellissima esperienza!

[Sarah T · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the most bazaar books I’ve ever read. I wouldn’t even consider this a novel. More like a collection of short stories that have a faint, barely visible connection between each other. Although each of the chapters/stories were entertaining to read and intriguing in their own way, I spent the majority of the book trying to connect the missing pieces or understand the references to the previous chapters rather than absorbing them as individual stories.

Especially the random chapter in the middle that is literally about junkie rabbits...entertaining for sure but like...why..??

I read this so fast trying to answer all the questions each story left me with and now that it’s over I’m still here with hardly any answers to my questions.
The best way to describe this book for me would be: unsatisfying.

[Eleanor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Being a series of short reviews of the Young Writer of the Year Award shortlisted titles. Spoilers ahead.

Julianne Pachico’s book The Lucky Ones is a collection of interlinked stories, set in Colombia between 1993 and 2013. During that time, the country was convulsed by drug wars, and Pachico focuses on the effect of those conflicts on a loosely connected group of characters: mostly schoolgirl friends (and frenemies), with forays into characters such as their English teacher, a maid who might or might not be employed by the family of one of the girls, and a rabbit: formerly a pet, now living wild in the tunnels beneath an abandoned country estate, hooked on coca leaves.

The latter story, Junkie Rabbit, gives the best sense of the lengths to which Pachico is willing to go in her writing. It is, for want of a more sophisticated word, bonkers. The whole concept—domesticated animals displaying alarmingly human vices—is a bold one, flirting with allegory, which isn’t a very popular form these days; making your narrator an animal is bolder still. Yet the premise rings surprisingly true. Does it seem all that unlikely that young men working in drug trafficking might find it funny to get their boss’s daughter’s pets addicted to cocaine? The storied excesses of Saddam Hussein’s sons aren’t more extreme, and they are nonfiction. It’s that interplay of incredulity and plausibility at which Pachico excels, and it’s that which gives her writing a quality best described as “hallucinatory.” (I’m pretty sure every one of the shadow panel has used that word in our reviews of this book.)

Another reason, I think, for this sense of the uncanny or dreamlike, is that Pachico is often writing about the effects of trauma on a person’s perception of reality. Lemon Pie, the story that convinced me this collection wasn’t just good but brilliant, follows the schoolgirls’ former middle school English teacher—an American guy who has settled in Colombia, and has now been kidnapped by paramilitaries. Well into his second year of imprisonment, he attempts to retain his sanity by teaching his old Hamlet lessons to groups of sticks and leaves, but the combination of constant fear, exposure, malnutrition, and a jungle parasite is wearing him down. When, in a later story, we encounter another formerly imprisoned teacher who has been badly disfigured by the same parasite, it’s natural for us to read him as the character we knew several stories ago—but he isn’t; the points of overlap are mere coincidence, our sense of familiarity shaken in the same way that both teacher characters’ perceptions have been permanently altered.

The microcosmic consequences of Colombia’s drug wars play out on a personal level, inside individual human hearts, and two of the stories are particularly effective at conveying this: Honey Bunny, which follows one of the middle school girls after she moves to New York with her family (as a college student, she’s now dealing the cocaine that is ruining her home country), and Beyond the Cake, in which another of the girls visits Colombia with her boyfriend after a decade away. Beyond the Cake opens with a description of the birthday party that features in the first story and throughout the book; our main character in this story, Betsy, is recounting it to her boyfriend. She attends, but is embarrassed by the present she’s brought and calls her parents to come and pick her up. We know, from reading the rest of the collection, that this party turned into a massacre: the birthday girl’s father, a crooked businessman, was probably the target, but there’s no suggestion that anyone else survived. Betsy’s early departure saves her life. It’s one of those hairpin moments in time, and by positioning it at the very end of her collection, Pachico drives home the random nature of luck: in this kind of environment there’s nothing special about a survivor, she seems to be saying, except for pure chance.

Pachico has a broad range, and The Lucky Ones reads almost as though it was designed to show that off: there are stories in first, third, and the elusive second person. We see through the eyes of maids, warlords, waiters, children. Throughout the collection, the sense of something being off-kilter competes with an evocation of place and atmosphere so strong that the book practically creates its own weather. (It would be very interesting to see it adapted as an anthology mini-series.) So far, this is my favourite to win: the prose is flawless, the structure is complexly conceived and smartly executed, and it is the only book on the shortlist, out of the four I’ve read so far, that has left me feeling winded after closing its covers.

The Young Writer of the Year Award winner is announced on 7 December. For more commentary, see the rest of the Shadow Panel: Rebecca, Clare, Dane and Annabel. This review was originally published on my blog at Elle Thinks. The Lucky Ones is published by Faber, and is available in paperback.

[Ari · Rating 4 out of 5]

Terrifying doesn't feel like the appropriate word here but the stories are incredibly suspenseful and feature gruesome (but necessary) details. The author does not flinch from portraying the reality of the civil war in Colombia and I think her decision to primarily showcase wealthy Colombians and the effect the war had on them is an interesting one. The author illustrates what we readers have long known to be true, wealth cannot protect you from everything. Most of the girls are touched by the violence in at least some way before the major conflict or traumatic event occurs in each story, they were just oblivious to its significance at the time. This is also a novel or short story collection (not sure which I would classify this) that really makes you work to put it together. The stories jump around chronologically which requires a keen memory or flipping back and forth to the dates at the beginning of each story in order to correctly place them in the timeline. The story I found most intriguing is the final one, set in 2013, a woman and her boyfriend are finally ready to go back to Colombia and see what remains. Needless to say it went in a direction I didn't expect but wholeheartedly understood and I'm still thinking about it.

The only story I found unsatisfactory was Mariela's (the comandante) since I wanted further details about what happened to her former friend. I read in another review he became a terrorist and maybe I missed that part but I don't think that's super clear from the text. The story that made my stomach churn the most was undoubtedly 'Lemon Pie' the one about the American teacher held captive in the forest (but also might be tied with the story I forgot the name of about the girl helping the other former teacher which starts off innocuously enough until you get to the part about the church). You are truly immersed in his madness in 'Lemon Pie' and it's frightening and sad. I finished the collection of stories and thought 'it was ok, I didn't love it'. But when I sat down to write these review a few days later I realized I still remembered a ridiculous amount of detail from each story and was still haunted by many of them. Thus I may not have ENJOYED reading this book but that should be expected since civil war, drugs, the disappeared, etc. are not exactly cheery topics.

THE LUCKY ONES is a searing and grim novel that will have you sitting on the edge of your seat experiencing extremely real feelings of dread. Pachico weaves together a collection of stories that connect and are embedded with a coming of age, the loss of innocence and (at times) magical realism. Her writing is sparse but it also captures a strong sense of place that will transport you to various settings in Colombia (and one story in New York) and immerse you in the lives of the Colombian elite. A collection we need, especially when sometimes it feels like the media glamorizes drug dealers, particularly Latin American ones. These stories give a literary voice both to the disappeared and those who managed to survive and illustrates the resilience of Colombians (of which I am a quarter).

[Audrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this series of connected stories, Pachico tells the bigger story that is the tragedy of Columbia's drug conflict. She burrows deep into the lives of a group of schoolchildren, their teacher, and their parents. The writing is strong, specific, and often dreamlike without ever being confusing. As a reader, I was there in the house with the teenager who finds herself mysteriously and frighteningly alone; I was in the jungle with the guerilla fighters; I was in New York with a Columbian emigree as she parties and tries to find her place in the U.S. Like other story-structured novels (Jennifer Egan's "A Visit from the Goon Squad" and Elizabeth Strout's "Olive Kitteredge"), "The Lucky Ones" requires a bit of surrender on the reader's part. You're not going to get a linear plot, but you will get an amazing emotional arc as well as characters and images that stay with you long after you've finished the book.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was more like a collection of interconnected short stories from different perspectives than a novel, and some of the stories grabbed me far more than others.

I liked how the stories often referenced one another directly or adopted the perspective of a minor character from a previous story. However, some of the more experimental ones — for example, that mad one about the rabbits — baffled me, to be honest.

At times it was frustrating to leave narrators; I really wanted to know what happened next with Stephanie! But I understand that the whole point was that the violence in Colombia can’t be tied up neatly with a bow, like the researcher tries to at the end with a positive report on the peace process that’s described as a mixture of “facts and fantasy.”

There are still so many unanswered questions, like the memories in the book that will keep returning until a body is found.

Speaking of bodies, the part I liked least about reading this book was all the graphic detail about bodily functions! Shit and piss and blood and disease everywhere, even aside from descriptions of violence. Maybe the intention was to make the reader feel queasy. If so, it worked.

[Andrea MacPherson · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

This is marketed as a novel, but it's really a series of linked stories about the conflict in Colombia. Pachico's writing is muscular, vigorous, and the stories were engrossing. Stylistically, this book is very adventurous, using a variety of devices (2nd person, stream of consciousness, non-linear narratives, collective chorus, animals as narrators) and sometimes this is very effective, while at other times it seems a bit too purposefully quirky (the story told from the POV of a bunny in a warren, in particular, did not add much for me).

There are echoes of the stories reverberating in other stories, which makes for a collage-like, dream-like narrative. Pachico's deft handling of character, violence, and memory makes the book haunting.

[Joseph · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tough to keep track of everything - more or less a first for me.