The lucky ones

"A tense and haunting literary jigsaw puzzle in the vein of Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad, Julianne Pachico's debut novel, set during the ongoing civil war in Colombia, is a prismatic tale about a group of characters whose lives intersect in often unexpected ways"-- "Taking place between 1993 and 2018 in Colombia and New York City, The Lucky Ones is a prismatic tale of a group of characters whose lives intersect in often unexpected ways and whose stories, taken together, provide a lens on the intensity of life in Colombia during the violent years of guerrilla insurgencies and corruption. A teenager hides alone in her family's mansion until she hears a knock at the door...her teacher is kidnapped by guerrillas and teaches Shakespeare in the jungle to a class of sticks, leaves, and stones...another classmate, now a young woman in New York, straddles past and present, unable to live in either without the help of the little bags of powder she carries with her. Showcasing a brilliant new literary voice, The Lucky Ones is both steeped in realism and has a hallucinatory feel--whether from the heat of the jungle, the drugs, or the surreal quality of a world in which the super wealthy have pet lions, people you love can disappear in an instant, and at any moment there might be a knock at your door"--