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2.5 

The Neighborhood

By Mario Vargas Llosa & Edith Grossman
The Neighborhood by Mario Vargas Llosa & Edith Grossman digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

A tabloid sex scandal leads to murder in the Nobel laureate’s politically charged thriller set among the wealthy elite of 1990s Peru.

Through the 1990s, Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori oversaw a deeply corrupt society. Those among the elite enjoyed privilege beyond imagining. But two couples from Lima’s upper class are about to become embroiled in a disturbing vortex of erotic adventures and politically driven blackmail.

Enrique, a high-profile businessman, receives a visit from notorious tabloid editor Rolando Garro, who attempts to blackmail him with graphic pictures from an old business trip. When Enrique refuses to pay, the images are on the front page. Meanwhile, Enrique’s wife is in the midst of a passionate affair with the wife of Enrique’s lawyer and best friend. When Garro shows up murdered, the two couples must navigate the unspoken laws and customs of Peru’s criminal underworld, while the magazine staff embarks on its greatest exposé yet.

A twisting, unpredictable tale, The Neighborhood is at once a scathing indictment of Fujimori’s regime and a crime thriller that evokes the vulgarity of freedom in a corrupt system.

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28 Reviews

2.5
Surprised Face with Open Mouth“i loved how the privileged, upper class people are the ones always complaining about the terrorists but are always the least affected, even when they get caught doing something crazy. reading this also made me wish i knew more about peru’s history and understanding their race relations so that’s definitely something i’ll be researching! i loved the whirlpool chapter, i feel like that’s how my brain operates so it was confusing for a few paragraphs then i caught on. i didn’t love how the plot with the two friends ended bc it was shallow in my opinion i liked the overall ending of the book.”
“2.5/5 - just not for me. It reads like a character study of several people involved in a blackmail-turned-regime-ending-scandal set towards the end of the Fujimori regime. That said, there's barely a study of any of the characters. Quique goes along with things without exercising any agency. Same for Luciano, the wives, the photographer, the reciter, even the editor-turned-martyr. The only interesting character (imo) is Shorty, but her situation just feels absurd (but she's very cool, I like shorty, I wish we spent more time with her instead). At the end of the day, the book just fell flat. There's an interesting premise which drew me in (the rise and fall of Fujimori), but that serves as nothing but a shallow backdrop. This book could've been set anywhere else (the US, France, South Korea, etc), switch up the names of characters and places, and the plot would've been just as believable/absurd as well. Maybe I'm just too dumb to see the literary gem hidden within. Maybe this is all an allegory written in the style of a yellow-press magazine (that would explain the not-so-Llosa writing here). Whatever it is, it's not for me. (Read in Colca Valley trying to spot Andean Condors)”

About Mario Vargas Llosa

Mario Vargas Llosa was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010 “for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat.” He has also won the Cervantes Prize, the Spanish-speaking world’s most distinguished literary honor. His many works include The Discreet Hero, The Feast of the Goat, The Bad Girl, and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, all published by FSG.

Edith Grossman has translated the works of the Nobel laureates Mario Vargas Llosa and Gabriel García Márquez, among others. Her version of Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote is considered the finest translation of the Spanish masterpiece in the English language.

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