Lead Review (False Calm)
- Book: False Calm
- Location: Patagonia
- Author: Katherine Silver (Translator), María Sonia Cristoff
3.5*
A collection of vignettes to transport the reader through the ghost towns of Patagonia. The inhabitants followed the money and the oil, leaving much behind, and it is the desolate sense of abandonment – coupled with interesting stories – that make this readable and interesting. She herself left in the 1980s because government and planners seemed to focus on Buenos Aires and the outlying villages and towns just got left behind. In these stories, she connects with the country of her birth.
Each place she visits has an individuality that the author captures well through her writing, with well observed anecdotes and information. Who knew about the Arab immigration into the country in the early 20th Century?
There are gritty and dark aspects to her journey (goodness, a spate of children’s suicides in one area she visits), there are humorous interludes and there is a great sense of lives eked out in a relatively poor area of the world.
A good book to pick up if you are choosing to visit Patagonia.
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