The Neighborhood by Mario Vargas Llosa

Author : Mario Vargas Llosa
Title : The Neighborhood
Published : 2019
Publisher : Faber & Faber
Pages : 272
Genre : Contemporary Fiction

     In the 1990s, during the turbulent and deeply corrupt years of Alberto Fujimori's presidency, two wealthy couples of Lima's high society become embroiled in a disturbing vortex of erotic adventures and politically driven blackmail. One day Enrique, a high-profile businessman, receives a visit from Rolando Garro, the editor of a notorious magazine that specializes in salacious exposes. Garro presents Enrique with lewd pictures from an old business trip and demands that he invest in the magazine. Enrique refuses, and the next day the pictures are on the front page. Meanwhile, Enrique's wife is in the midst of a passionate and secret affair with the wife of Enrique's lawyer and best friend. When Garro shows up murdered, the two couples are thrown into a whirlwind of navigating Peru's unspoken laws and customs, while the staff of the magazine embarks on their greatest expose yet.

     I came across this book completely by chance. I was in a nearby city for the day ambling between records stores and book shops and possibly eating way too much. I would point out I had no intention of buying more books. So on my last stop of the day I came across a deal of buy one get one half price on authors from South America. As it would happen this was the first one I picked up. I can't say that Peru has ever really featured on my radar when it comes to authors. But the blurb on the back piqued my interest. With a mix of political and murder mystery, it would at least prove to be an interesting read. 

     With this book, Llosa gave me a very small group of characters to interact with. This proves to be one of the great strengths of the book. It allows each of them to play a very significant role in the story being told.  I got to know them all very well for better or worse. Once again this is a book that gives us heroes who are not particularly good people. Each one would seem to be out for there own means at the expense of anyone who gets in there way. Now I suppose you have to take into account the time and country this novel takes place. It comes across as a very dark period in Pure's history when liberty's where few and far between. And due to its location a part of the city that housed some of the poorest right up against those with the most power. It would seem that each of our characters is ether trying to maintain their position or jump a few rungs up the ladder. What it means for us the reader is a dive into the depths of depravity and corruption. I can not say I would feel comfortable in the company of any of them but it does make for some great reading.  

     I find it hard to pin down exactly which genre this book falls into. You could say it's a crime book, after all, there is a murder, but it goes further than that. It takes a good hard look at Peru in the nineties and how a government's corruption sends its tentacles out into every aspect of daily life. It is after all hard to stay on the righteous path with money and power all around. How much can the average person take being downtrodden? It's one of those strange things that when you think of Peru your mind fills with sunshine and good times. But somehow in my mind, this book seems to take place in the dark shadows, only illuminated but street lights and corner shops. There is an overwhelming feeling of foreboding that hangs off every page. It pulls you into its corruption never for a minute letting you come up for air. You are left feeling like you are trapped in a feverish nightmare where none of our heroes can seem to find the door to freedom.  

     I get the overwhelming feeling this is a book that will turn some people off. With its mix of unlikeable characters and it's deplorable situations it would be easy to see why. But there is something there deep down that kept me from turning away.  I had to know what becomes of them no matter how bad things got. Which I suppose is the mark of a truly great writer. The only thing that sent me slightly off-kilter was the amount of sex that goes on in ever more graphic detail. But that is more down to a personal preference. And to be totally fair to the author does fit in with the heroes he chose to give us.  But if you want a dark brooding kind of a novel that never flinches away from the evils of the world this is the one for you.