American Fiction, Short Story Collections (Single Author), Settings & Atmosphere - Fiction, Disasters & Accidents - Fiction

War by Candlelight

Name: War by Candlelight
Author: Daniel Alarcon
ISBN: 9780060594800

by Daniel Alarcon

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Overview

In this collection, Daniel Alarcon takes the reader from Third World urban centers to the fault lines that divide nations and people. Wars, both national and internal, are waged in jungles, across borders, in the streets of Lima, in the intimacy of New York apartments. These are lives at the margins of the globalized and not-yet-globalized worlds, the stories of those who shuttle between them and never quite feel at home in the cities where they were born: an unrepentant terrorist remembers where it all began, a would-be emigrant contemplates the ramifications of leaving and never coming back, a reporter turns in his pad and pencil for the inglorious costume of a street clown.

Synopsis

Something is happening. Wars, both national and internal, are being waged in jungles, across borders, in the streets of Lima, in the intimacy of New York apartments. War by Candlelight is an exquisite collection of stories that carry the reader from Third World urban centers to the fault lines that divide nations and people — a devastating portrait of a world in flux — and Daniel Alarcón is an extraordinary new voice in literary fiction, one you will not soon forget.

Publishers Weekly

Civil strife and natural disasters mark these nine unflinching stories set in upper Manhattan and the blighted countryside and atrophied capital of Peru. Callous government forces destroy a prison controlled by rioting inmates in the grimly poetic "Flood." In the "City of Clowns"-first published in the New Yorker-social protests crowd Lima, where "dying is the local sport," while narrator Oscar, a jaded young journalist, grapples with his father's death and with his father's second family, which includes other sons and a mistress who seems to be befriending his mother. A revolutionary, who, with his compa eros, worships "frivolous violence," prowls around looking for black dogs to slaughter in "Lima, Peru, July 28, 1979." His brief, almost tender interaction with a passing cop is a striking example of doomed connection. And an accidental explosion kills a well-educated guerrilla in a Peruvian jungle, leaving his infant daughter fatherless, in the affecting title story. Even the collection's warmest scene-a father gives his impish five-year-old a make-up kit for her birthday in "A Science for Being Alone"-is muffled by her and her mother's impending emigration to the United States. Though his vision often seems bleak, Alarc n's voice is fierce and assured, and his debut collection engages. Agent, Eric Simonoff. (Apr.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

About the Author, Daniel Alarcon

Daniel Alarcon's debut story collection, War by Candlelight, was a finalist for the 2006 PEN/Hemingway Award. He has received a Lannan Literary Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Award, and has been named by Granta magazine one of the Best American Novelists under thirty-five. He is the associate editor of Etiqueta Negra, an award-winning monthly magazine published in his native Lima, Peru. He lives in Oakland, California.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly

Library Journal

Alarcon's first collection is a mixed bag, both stylistically and in terms of quality. The most rewarding of these nine stories are those that deal with broken relationships, be they familial, amorous, or simply human. In "City of Clowns," which appeared in The New Yorker in 2003, Oscar comes to grips with his deceased father's double life. In "Third Avenue Suicide," David must find a place to hide out every time visitors come so they won't discover he's living with his girlfriend. "Absence" explores the plight of the defenseless immigrant, separated from his homeland. Some of the shorter pieces, however (e.g., "Flood" and "A Strong Good Man"), fail to ignite. The Peruvian-born Alarcon writes in a strong, vibrant style, with recognizable characters and realistic situations. The names and places are Hispanic in name only; the stories transcend a sense of place. Three stories were previously published in prominent publications. For larger literary fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 12/04.]-Lawrence Olszewski, OCLC Lib., Dublin, OH Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Nine diverse stories show this Peruvian-American newcomer's passionate involvement with his material. Whether it's a deadly landslide, a no-holds-barred neighborhood turf war, or a guerrilla war convulsing a nation, Alarcon jumps right in with a fearlessness that becomes his most striking quality. Six of these stories are set in Peru, three in New York City. In "The Visitor," a man huddles with his three children, the only survivors of an Andean mountain landslide that has buried their town and their mother. It's short, but it cuts to the bone. A poor Lima neighborhood erupts in "Flood," but the fierce joy of a street fight pales into insignificance when the state decides to end a prison riot by burning down the institution, roasting the inmates alive. For his two longest stories, Alarc-n replaces linear narrative with a mosaic from different time periods. The title piece runs from 1966 to 1989, when Fernando is killed by a bomb in the jungle. For years, he had been torn between the "bourgeois fantasies" of raising a family and the inescapable duty of fighting with the guerrillas. Alarc-n limns his ambivalence with grace and power. There is no ambivalence, however, in "City of Clowns," which first appeared in the New Yorker's 2003 Debut Fiction issue; there's only the dull anger of reporter Oscar, whose father Don Hugo has just died. Oscar can't forgive his father for having left the household to start a new family with his black mistress, Carmela, or his sweetly humble mother for making a separate peace with Carmela. There's much more to this multilayered story, where everyone in "beautiful disgraced Lima" has their own hustle. Best of the New York stories is "A Strong Dead Man," about aDominican teenager who struggles with his father's death from a stroke. "Third Avenue Suicide" is a carefully observed domestic drama, but it's left unresolved. The extremes of death and war and poverty are what impel Alarcon to his best work. A rare combination of technical accomplishment and generous heart.