CCA News

City in the River, City in the Forest

Posted on Tuesday, May 18, 2010, by Lindsey Westbrook

City in the River, City in the Forest
Hag's Head Press, 2010
Paperback, 128 pages, 12.99 Euros

In this new book by Melanie Westerberg (Writing 2004), Mary is a tour guide at a remote lodge in the Amazon. There she meets Hector, who sneaks into her hammock late at night and leaves tiny gifts at her door. But then she begins to see fires on uninhabited land, hear gunshots, encounter suspicious strangers in the dead of night. She doesn’t know if it’s the start of another undeclared civil war or retribution against the lodge owner, whose husband had fought with the rebels before disappearing for a decade.

Says Peter Orner, author of The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo, "Melanie Westerberg has written a wondrous first book. The writing is unique and brave, and the story is as engaging as it is harrowing. It’s the sort of rare, completely original book I am always looking for and never finding."