May 23, 2005
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This confident debut collection of short fiction has much to recommend it: Alarcón is a compassionate new voice whose maturity belies his relative youth, and these nine stories offer a panoramic vision of what it is like to live in contemporary Peru and in America as a Peruvian immigrant.

Alarcón's fearlessness in dealing with big material is at once apparent in the title story, which explores the harsh existence of a member of a Peruvian radical terrorist group. Fernando, the protagonist, leads a double life; he drives collaborators to mystery destinations at night and spends periods camped out in the jungle, at times questioning his own dedication to the cause. The longish timeframe (c1965-1989) affords the opportunity, rare in short fiction, to etch in some history, but the focus is kept on the human impact: Fernando's young wife refuses to have a child despite his conviction that he would be a good father. 'Yes but for how long?' she asks. He wins that particular argument but is killed some years later, thereby losing both his daughter and the no-win argument that his life has become. And yet, paradoxically, he remains full of hope to the end. This optimism in the face of difficult situations is common to the characters in many of these stories. The writer seems to have the knack of dealing with dark subject matter, while distracting the reader from its darkness.

Emigration is a recurrent theme. In 'A science for being alone' the narrator's girlfriend leaves him for a new life with an American man, taking their daughter with him. 'She was leaving me for "Los Uniteds," for its mighty economy, its fertile ground where dollars grow wild.' In 'Absence' it is a young artist who leaves Lima for America, only to discover that, having left behind his language and his friends, there is a weird emptiness to what he has gained.

A jacket quote describes the author as 'the great new Latin American voice' but although the work has been well received in the US, it is yet to be published south of California. Alarcón left Peru when he was three, grew up in Alabama, and writes in English. His book is now being translated into Spanish; it will be interesting to see what South American readers eventually make of "Guerra en la penumbra," and whether, in fact, this prediction comes to fruition.

Lane Ashfeldt