The Jaguar's Children: A novel - Hardcover

Vaillant, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0307397165 ISBN 13: 9780307397164

Publisher: Knopf Canada, 2015

Synopsis

From the #1 bestselling, award-winning author of The Golden Spruce and The Tiger: a rich, gripping literary thriller in the spirit of The Constant Gardener that showcases the narrative power for which John Vaillant is internationally acclaimed.
          Hector, a young Zapotec fleeing Mexico for a better life in the US with his friend Cesar, a biotech researcher, pays to be smuggled across the border by unscrupulous "coyotes," concealed in the tightly sealed, empty tank of a water truck packed with illegal migrants. Abandoned by the smugglers in the desert, they are left to die, their only lifeline Cesar's phone. When Cesar slips into unconsciousness, Hector reaches out to the one name with an American code--AnniMac--that becomes his lifeline to the world as he reveals what has brought him to this place, taking us back to an older Mexico; to the lives of his Zapotec grandparents and the ancient, mythic traditions, to the mystery behind the jaguar icon left to him by a mysterious archeologist, and the power of the corn myth. As legends fuse with the terrifying present, the dangers Cesar is fleeing become grippingly apparent: his research was threatening to expose the country's largest manufacturer of genetically modified corn, set to impose economic and cultural genocide on the native population. Finding the courage to survive is critical, even as hope dwindles.

About this title

About the Author

JOHN VAILLANT's first book, The Golden Spruce, was a #1 national bestseller, winner of the Governor General's Literary Award for Non-Fiction, the Pearson Writer's Trust Non-Fiction Award and the Roderick Haig Brown Regional Prize. The Tiger was a #1 national bestseller, a Canada Reads selection, a Globe and Mail Best Book, and won the BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, the Prix Bouvier, the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award, the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize, the CBA Libris Award for Non-Fiction Book of the Year and the CBC Bookie Award for Best Overall Book. It has been translated into 15 languages. Vaillant has written for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Outside, National Geographic and The Walrus, among other publications. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, with his wife and children.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Thu Apr 5 — 08:31 [text]
hello i am sorry to bother you but i need your assistance —
i am hector — cesars friend — its an emergency now for cesar — are you in el norte? i think we are also — arizona near nogales or sonoita — since yesterday we are in this truck with no one coming — we need water and a doctor — and a torch for cutting metal

Thu Apr 5 — 08:48
please text me annimac — we need help

Thu Apr 5 — 08:59
are you there annimac? it’s hector — please text me

Thu Apr 5 — 09:52
there was a storm — 1 bar only now — ARE YOU THERE???

Thu Apr 5 — 10:09
1 bar — something’s broken — maybe from the lightning — the
helicopter came again but doesn’t stop — how do they not see
us? nothing going now

Thu Apr 5 — 10:26 [soundfile]
Hello? I hope this works. Still one bar only but I’m recording now and when the signal comes back I will send it in a soundfile with all the details and the information from César. He is badly hurt, AnniMac — unconscious. I looked in his contacts for someone else, but the Mexican numbers won’t work now, and you are the only one with an American code. I hope you are his friend. I know him from school, but I haven’t seen him in many years. We’ve been together only a short time now to cross the border and already he gave me so many things. I have been telling him he’s not alone, that I sent you messages and you’re coming soon, that you will save us. I don’t know if he hears, but in this darkness how will he know to live without a voice — some sign of life? So I talk to him, and to you also. AnniMac, if you get these messages and come to look for us what you are looking for is a water truck — an old Dina. The tank is a big one — ten thousand liters and you will know it when you see an adobe-color truck that says on the side AGUA PARA USO HUMANO — Water for Human Use. But that doesn’t mean you can drink it. This one is different because someone has painted J and R so it says now JAGUAR PARA USO HUMANO. I saw this in the garage before we loaded and I didn’t know if it was graffiti or some kind of code, the secret language of coyotes, but then I was nervous to ask and later it was too late.

Edition details

• Publisher: Knopf Canada
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0307397165
• ISBN 13: 9780307397164
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288