Losing Track

This week’s challenge was to read a book set in South America by a South American author.

The Blue Line by Ingrid Betancourt opens on a middle-aged Julia in Connecticut. Blessed, or rather cursed, with the gift of premonition from the time she was a little girl in Uruguay and Argentina, Julia has always been compelled to seek out the scene of her visions in hopes of intervening.

While living in Buenos Aires as a child, she became close to her grandmother, Mama Fina, who also has visions. As Julia grows, Mama Fina helps her to analyze each vision and develop a plan to intercede. Whether it’s protecting a priest, escaping political imprisonment, or later, uncovering an affair, Julia’s experience (and foresight) is harrowing, thrilling, and horrifying to read.

It’s not an easy read. Shifting in time from 2006 America to 1970s Argentina to 2002 France and several times in between, Julia lives with Theo, meets Theo, loses Theo, and finds Theo. The reader must pay attention but is rewarded as the story begins to make sense, the loss understood.

Betancourt, herself, was held by a Colombian guerrilla organization for more than six years. If truth is stronger than fiction, Even Silence Has an End will be a knockout.