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Synopsis
A dark, lyrical novel about 19th-century Paraguay, its ill-fated dictator, and the woman who loved him.
Review
Before you read Lily Tuck's curious, disquieting, and wonderful novel, be forewarned: many bad things happen. There is sickness,
murder, and rape; children are lost, women are abandoned, and empires are brought to ruin. But don't let that stop you.
The book begins in 1854, as Francisco Solano, commander-in-chief of the Paraguayan army, courts Ella Lynch, a courtesan, in Paris. Tempted by Solano's promise to build a great empire, Ella accepts his marriage proposal, follows him to Paraguay, and becomes his wife. Over the next 20 years, Ella bears five sons, writes occasional letters to a friend in Paris, and
watches her husband destroy his nation.
The cause of Francisco's demise is never fully accounted for, at least not in such accuracy as to please an historian. But there are clues: Francisco is greedy from the start; he becomes paranoid, quick to torture and imprison even his own
siblings, and dismissive of insurgent armies. He is nothing less than a dictator by the time his neighboring enemies invade.
Ella ultimately returns to Paris, but times have changed there, too, and her place in society has been lost.
For all its tragedy, The News from Paraguay is not a depressing book. It's captivating and unusual, full of surprising details and haunting imagery. The "news" of the
title refers to the events that Ella relays in her letters to France; the "news" of the narrative — details of character,
sudden twists of plot — arrives just as casually, as though the reader is being updated by dispatch. Tragedies are presented
as simple fact, and there is even an ironic, satirical touch to many of the characters' cruel fates.
In a way, the mercilessly straightforward quality of Tuck's narrative is fitting. Wholesale destruction, she seems to suggest,
is the inevitable cost of colonization. To overstate it — to belabor Francisco's fall — would diminish its certainty. But
even this lesson is quiet; Tuck never moralizes about empire. Instead, she focuses on strange coincidences and small, personal
tragedies. Her characterization is revealing but never too probing, and the reader must pay close attention to detail. In
the end, it's these details that linger and haunt long after the empire Francisco dreamed of has collapsed.
- Gena Hamshaw
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