Why everyone should read Valeria Luiselli’s ‘Lost Children Archive’

A family in New York packs the car and sets out on a road trip. This will be the last journey they ever take together.

In Central America and Mexico, thousands of children are on a journey of their own, travelling north to the US border. Not all of them will make it there.

– Blurb to ‘Lost Children Archive’

Nothing about this blurb prepared me for the exquisite strangeness of reading ‘Lost Children Archive’. Heart-breaking, yet at times humorous, as well as innovative, but not pretentiously so, Luiselli’s first English novel is a masterpiece.

Quite apart from the mesmeric nature of Luiselli’s writing, ‘Lost Children Archive’ reveals and connects three seemingly obscure yet fascinating topics: soundscaping, the Apache Wars and child migration to the US. I had never heard of soundscaping as a profession, but this book proves that aural experience, translated deftly into writing by Luiselli, should be far more central to our understanding and documentation of existence. A novel explicitly interested in the issues of time, memory, posterity and the processes of remembrance, Luiselli’s book represents a timeless and incisive reflection on family and national history; however, it simultaneously locates itself boldly in the present day, as intensely political, though perfectly restrained. The book’s simultaneous preoccupation with historical genocide, contemporary migration and divorce in no way conflates or equates these issues but rather reflects the way in which people genuinely experience past events and current news in parallel with their own lives.

‘Lost Children Archive’ is structured around the road trip of an unnamed family of four. Towards the beginning of the book, this lack of clarity was frustrating; I found it difficult to understand why Luiselli had chosen to write in this way, especially as the ‘lost children’ turned out to be the only figures with first names. This contrast might have been her intention, or perhaps she felt as though their infrequently used Apache names (Swift Feather, Papa Cochise, Lucky Arrow, and Memphis) were more representative of their characters. Nevertheless, I quickly got used to reading ‘boy’, ‘girl’ and ‘husband’ in place of expected names and so any initial jarring effect lost its potency.

However, Luiselli’s various narrators and story-tellers certainly maintained their integrity and power throughout. Through the perspectives of the mother, whose dissociated voice is as compelling as it is quietly disturbing, and her son, whose directness and inclusivity marks a welcome contrast, Luiselli carefully blends fear, anxiety and isolation with moments of joy, connection and humour. As if this multi-layered structure was not complex enough, ‘Lost Children Archive’ is blended with ‘Elegies for Lost Children’, which tells a harrowing parallel story of child migrants struggling to reach the US. Unflinching in the face of death, Luiselli’s ‘novel-within-a-novel’ is wonderfully handled, as lyrical as it is horrifying, and it injects the book with a deep sense of emotion and sincerity.

‘Lost Children Archive’ draws on an extensive collection of international literature, some of which Luiselli has translated for this book herself. Deftly weaving moments of paraphrase and quotation into her novel, it is easy to understand how the book functions as an archive in and of itself. Indeed, in many ways Luiselli creates a collage of experience, rather than a sense of exacting coherence.

‘The archive that sustains this novel is both an inherent and a visible part of the central narrative’ – Valeria Luiselli

The content of this book – which combines intriguing history with current political crises, cross-country travel and family dramas – would surely be enough to capture any reader, but it is the originality, emotional intensity and erudition of Luiselli’s prose that make this a truly remarkable read. Accompanied by government documents, maps and evocative polaroids, ‘Lost Children Archive’ is a triumph. Haunting yet beautiful, it is a book I will never forget.