Bottom of the world

Title : Anca L Szilagyi
Author : Daughters of the Air
Published : 05/12/2017
Pages : 246
Genre : Magical Realism
Publisher : Lanternfish Press LLC

     Tatiana "Pluta" Spektor was a mostly happy, if awkward, young girl--until her sociologist father was disappeared during Argentina's Dirty War. Sent a world away by her grieving mother to attend boarding school outside New York City, Pluta wrestles alone with the unresolved tragedy and at last runs away: to the streets of Brooklyn in 1980.

 

     Most Sunday mornings you can usual find me in bed flicking through blogs and tumbler looking for new books to read. And that was how I came across this one. The cover grabbed me as I was passing through. It seemed like such a strange image that I had to stop and find out what it was all about. Argentina is a country I know little about other than its location on a map. So I felt a slight intrigue to maybe learn something.  Also I was curious about Pluta and what would happen to here once she become homeless would this all end in tragedy or could she maybe find a light at the end of the tunnel.

 

     The story is told from Pluta's perspective which I felt add a lot to how I came to feel about this book. With out this the book would have felt a little empty to me. Through a mixture of her interactions with those around her and her internal thoughts I came to see what a wonderfully complex person she was. She is brave, passionate, scared, naïve and wise beyond her years.   To some extend she show a chameleon like quality where ever the winds take her she melts in and finds ways to adapt to her new situations. Her life as I came to learn was not a particularly easy one. While I appreciate that some of this was from her own doing mostly down to her decision to run away from boarding school it makes it no less heart breaking.

 

     Inside her there is something burning deep down. Not only for her need to escape but also in a need to explore and find a new world that she believes is out there. All the while taking us with her on this magical and surreal journey. The author draws you into to her bit by bit building up compassion for this person she has created. Both Pluta and her mother show a great deal of loneliness through out this book. While they both try to deal with it in there own ways. They share this connection of trying to fill a hole that can never be filled. The authors way of describing there thoughts and actions as a reaction to this crept of the page and into my mind. The feeling she evokes are very real and tangible and at times I could feel them welling up in me.  

 

     Szilagyi creates this dream like world in the telling of her story. This is not the dreams of a child though more a darker floating quality. You feel like your rubbing up against the real world slightly muffled and hazy. For me there where times it could be a mixture between a Tom waits song and that of the beat generation.  It holds a bitter sweet view of the world where the focus is on the sort of people we would tend to walk past and not give a second look to. In a lot of ways this is a modern fairy tale like the original Grimm's story's. People will suffer and they will get hurt along the way.   A lot of the people Pluta come into contact with have for one reason or another crashed down to rock bottom. They are the  forgotten people of the world. Luck seems to have not been on there side and are just trying to make the best of the hand they have been dealt.  What our heroine goes through to survive while on the streets is one I think a lot of people live as there everyday lives.

 

     The story changes time period between her life in Argentina and her time spent on the streets. This allows a look at the differences between how a child sees the world and a young women trying to find her place in it.  The earlier parts of the story deal with the disappearance of Pluta's father in Argentina's dirty war a topic I think a lot of people are still trying to come to terms with even today. If some one you cared deeply for just didn't come home one day how are you suppose to reconcile this. With no answers to this question you are only left with your own imagination to fill in the blanks. For most of us I would think you would go to the worst case  scenario. You would end up on the phone to the police begging them for help. How ever in the time period this book is set this would not be a very wise thing to do. And how is she as a child suppose to pull all the parts together into something she can understand. The last element of this book is the magical realism I guess you would call it. For me it fits into the story so seamlessly. It lifts our heroin up to some other place not necessarily high just different.  

 

     This is a book that drew me in to its world. The author for me has brought to life something that will fascinate and hold on to you. It's a world of crooked and broken people all searching for something they just don't seem to be able to hold onto. All the elements in this book combine together to make something truly great for me. It is a book I will be adding to my forever books.