Heavenly writing, powerful story
I was recently invited to read and review this book called ‘Paradise Erased’. The title and its beguiling cover might suggest a pacy summer thriller – and it is a compelling read – but it’s a hugely atmospheric boyhood memoir, by Colombian-born Miguel Angel Monzon. The clue that it’s all true, is the subtitle, ‘Chronicle of an Exile’.
Monzon charts events lyrically with a child’s eye, as an idyllic life in his native town changes forever, and corruption and danger close in on the blissful childhood he loved. The author interweaves the vivid immediacy of his boyhood perceptions of these events with a compelling narrative of what his policewoman mother Carmen’s was discovering within the adult world around them.
A beautiful and beguiling English tourist who loses her passport in a mugging, is temporarily quartered with Miguel and his mother, and enchants the child with tales of Big Ben and her home city of London – creating a hopscotch game with him out of its features – but she goes missing, after supposedly being reunited with her paperwork and escorted to the airport. The boy imagines her back home in London; but as his fearless mother’s suspicions quietly grow, her quest for information – and justice – uncovers a quagmire: an illegal death squad run by her own boss, that began by taking out minor miscreants like the impoverished young muggers who had robbed their guest, and soon moved on to participating in major corruption.
As Carmen seeks to bring her boss and his henchmen to book, she and Miguel inevitably become targets themselves, and take refuge in a series of ever-more challenging hiding places, separations, and protectors living on life’s margins. Young Miguel only gradually realises why they have given up their once-comfortable life. Monzon recounts these upheavals lyrically, with all the fascination, stoicism – and occasional breaks from obedience – of his childhood self. His boyhood admiration for his remarkable mother Carmen shines throughout.
As justice is finally served, life in Columbia still remains precarious for mother and son, and they eventually accept the official offer of a British haven. Young Miguel finally gets to see Big Ben, and can seek out the places he once knew only in his childhood hopscotch games; but of his lovely lost playfellow’s footsteps, the trail in her own hometown has gone cold.
Many thanks to Literally PR for my copy of this lyrical and haunting read. www.literallypr.com
@miguelNgel14964#ParadiseErased