Book Review - Lost Luggage - Jordi Punti

Title:  Lost Luggage

Author: Jordi Punti

Review:  This is like reading 4 different authors in the same book.  Each narrative is different and unique to the character the chapter/ifomation is about, but they also narrate against and with each other at times...strange.  How can one man cause so many issues and problems?  Well having many children with many different women is a good start.  4 brothers that are not aware of each other, each the same father and name but different mothers.  Lots going on in this book, lots of people and lives affected by this one man, fathers are important even if they are not involved.  Everyone has one and everyone needs one that is more than a name or signature on a check.

I think that this book will make you think and ponder your life and your relationships with your loves ones and especially your parents.  This book doesn’t move fast like I would have likes, lots of repeating of things and many, many memories that are important, yet slow down the progress for the reader.  Also this is a translated book and so the pacing and word choices are not what you might expect and that will slow you down as a reader also.  Watch out for the British language that many Americans are not familiar with, it may be English, but it is not American English.

This book is interesting and I think many readers would enjoy it.  Some of it does come off a bit fairy tale like, but that is life for some of us.

Publisher: Expected publication: October 15th 2013 by Simon & Schuster Canada (first published 2010)

ISBN: 9781476730318

Copyright: 2010

Pages: 448

Quick Review:  4 stars out of 5

Where did I get the book:  Sent by the publisher for an honest review.

Synopsis: Christof, Christophe, Christopher, and Cristòfol are four brothers—sons of the same father and four very different mothers—yet none of them knows of the others’ existence. They live in four different cities: Frankfurt, Paris, London, and Barcelona. Unbeknownst to them, they have one thing in common: Gabriel Delacruz—a truck driver—abandoned them when they were little and they never heard from him again.

Then one day, Cristòfol is contacted by the police: his father is officially a missing person. This fact leads him to discover that he has three half-brothers, and the four young men come together for the first time. Two decades have passed since their father last saw any of them. They barely remember what he was like, but they decide to look for him to resolve their doubts. Why did he abandon them? Why do all four have the same name? Did he intend for them to meet?

Divided by geography yet united by blood, the “Christophers” set out on a quest that is at once painful, hilarious, and extraordinary. They discover a man who during thirty years of driving was able to escape the darkness of Franco’s Spain and to explore a luminous Europe, a journey that, with the birth of his sons, both opened and broke his heart.

Author Biography:  Jordi Puntí is a writer, translator (Paul Auster, Amélie Nothomb and Daniel Pennac, among others), and a regular contributor to the Spanish and Catalan press. He is currently the editor of the literary supplement, Quadern, published by the newspaper El País.

Puntí is considered one of the most promising new voices of contemporary Catalan literature. In 1998 he published his first book of short stories, Pell d’armadillo (Proa, 1998) that won the Serra d’Or Critics’ Prize.

Lost Luggage is his first novel.

Other Reviews:

The Literatuer "The cardinal points represented by the four ‘Christophers’ operate as a compass, directing us through a maze of adventures that Gabriel shares with his travel mates Petroli and Bundó. Gabriel is the central character of a story narrated by the ‘Christophers’ at the different stages of their encounters, organised to investigate their father’s life. Gabriel possesses the gift of chance, but we soon discover how the constraints of his upbringing weigh him down and, when his nomadic life no longer makes sense to him, he plays with the idea of suicide, plans to jump off the statue of another Christopher – Christopher Columbus - to put an end to it all.  But once again he is saved by the persistence of chance. Gabriel (like the author) is a keen card player; eventually the full house of Lost Luggage’s design is revealed, but not without risks and tricks."

Express.UK "In the Christophers' search for Gabriel the reader finds a funny, moving and poignant exploration of identity, home, family and freedom."