Review: CITY OF THE BEASTS

WHY had I not discovered Isabel Allende decades ago? This author writes with purity, uplifting our spirits; her lyrical prose just sings, clearer and more joyously than a bird in flight, coursing on a mountain updraft!

In Northern California, in a quiet coastal community, a mother of three is dying. When her doctor spouse locates an alternative treatment clinic in Texas, the two younger children, daughters, go to their mother's mother; but fifteen-year-old Alex, once calm and steady, since his mother's decline temperamental, is sent to his father's eccentric and indifferent mother in New York City. His life changes immediately, as he accompanies travel writer and explorer Grandmother Kate on an excursion to an isolated region in the Amazon rainforest straddling Bolivia and Venezuela, in which several possible uncontacted tribes live.

It is not often that coming-of-age takes place in a matter of weeks, as is the case for Alexander, whose spiritual eyes are opened as he encounters his Spirit Animal, and bonds with half-native Nadia, daughter of an Amazon guide, who communicates with animals, keeps a monkey companion, has an ancient Shaman as mentor and friend, and sees Spirits.

This novel could not have been set anywhere but in the Amazon region. The juxtaposition of the isolated uncontacted tribes as against the unbridled greed of entrepreneurs, settlers, miners and prospectors, soldiers, and certain Narcissistically lunatic academics, in the context of the ongoing climate destruction begun in the 19th century and still racing to Doomsday, is vivid, frightening, heartbreaking, yet still the characters and we the readers find reason to hope. I shall read this book (and Trilogy) again and again.

Addendum:
CITY OF THE BEASTS, past its introductory early chapters in coastal Northern California and in NYC, is devoted to the Amazon Region setting, and vividly describes geography, topography, zoology, and botany of this expansive region. Secondly, author Isabel Allende is a native of South America, born in Lima, Peru where her father was a diplomat, and by genetic heritage is Chilean.