Read April 2019. Women's Prize for Fiction 2019 Long List.
A sound documentarian and his journalist wife, embark on a journey across USA from New York to Arizona, with their 10 year old son and 5 year old daughter.
The couple met while working on a documentary about the sounds of New York, and fell in love over this shared project.
Each brought to the marriage a child - the husband, a boy and the wife, a girl. They have become a single family unit, but the husband is restless and wants to embark on an epic road trip to follow the history of the Apache - for reasons unknown.
The wife is reluctant, at first, but comes to realise that something is amiss with their relationship, and she is also feeling restless. She has become involved in the story of two Mexican refugee girls, being held at the border, and decides to combine the road trip with a project about missing refugee children - "lost children".
They begin their trip with a few possessions, recording equipment, a polaroid camera, and some archive boxes, which are filled with various research materials/books/pictures associated with their two projects - and two empty boxes for the children to fill along the way.
As the family drives west, the father tells the children of the tragic history of the Apache, and the mother shares stories of the refugee children stranded at the southern border and being deported back home to an unknown fate....while a marriage falls apart at the seams.
This is a difficult book to review, so I may ramble a bit here!
Ultimately, it is a book about the sound and rhythm of our lives - how sometimes the beats of individuals can be in harmony, and at other times discordant. Sometimes, the harmonious note of a couple can become out of sync over time, and the music that was once there is gone.
It is a book about things that are lost - not just "lost children".
This book is actually in two different parts.
The first covers the narrative of the mother and describes their journey west, the tales that are shared with the children, and the worsening relationship with her husband. She finds it difficult to understand why her husband is so obsessed with tracing the history of the Apache tribe, and this is not really explained, although it does provide a reason for the road trip.
This part of the story, which takes up the majority of the book, is actually rather boring and introspective. Not a lot really happens, other than domestic dramas and the pace is very slow. To be honest, the Apache tales become a bit tedious, though they do serve to inspire the children to take on new identities - as sort of "braves".
I have seen a few reviews from people who have given up on this book, because they found it boring and I can see why, based on the first part.
The second part of the book is the narrative of the son. This part was by far the best bit of the book.
In this section, it becomes clear that the stories of both the mother and father have made a very big impression on him. The boy becomes fired up with the idea that, as a "brave", he can help to find the two refugee girls, who have now become lost after running away from a detainment centre.
The boy leaves a note and map for his parents, and takes his sister on a journey through the desert to trace the footsteps of the "lost children". In effect, they become "lost children" themselves.
This is the most powerful part of the book and my heart was in my mouth the whole time they were alone and vulnerable.
Thankfully, the boy and girl are found safe and well, but the fate of the other "lost children" is not so certain - are the missing girls alive or dead? We will never know for sure.
The boy is actually very astute, when it comes to the state of his parents' marriage. He can see the end is nigh, and because of this, he fills his archive box with momentos for his sister, so she will remember him and their adventures. This was so touching and beautiful that it made me shed a tear or two, and made the whole book worthwhile. So, if you give this book a go, please make sure to read it all.
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