Night Prayers | Santiago Gamboa

episode SUMMARY:

In this episode of the Books for Men podcast, host Douglas Vigliotti discusses the book Night Prayers by Santiago Gamboa. The story spans from Bogota to Bangkok to Tokyo covering everything from drug trafficking to high-end escorting, following two siblings, Manuel and Juana, with Manuel searching for his missing sister. The book explores themes such as differing viewpoints, growing up in another country, and sticking up for one's beliefs. Vigliotti also mentions the inclusion of crime elements and resolution in the story, emphasizing the importance of considering the length of a book and adjusting expectations when reading literary fiction. He concludes by encouraging listeners to support the podcast and share it with others.

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Welcome back to Books for Men, a podcast to inspire more men to read and bring together men who do. And so I figured since we featured a literary book to start, it was the first episode Miles from Nowhere, and featured a crime novel Lush Life, which was the third episode, I figured we would do a literary crime novel, so a combination of both the literary genre and the crime genre. And that's why today's book is going to be Night Prayers by Santiago Gamboa. And so I love this book for a lot of reasons and you're going to hear many of them as we continue this episode. But one of the things that I wanted to mention was that I did a review of the previous episode and at the beginning I said, I'm going to give you some nuts and bolts. And then I went off on a tangent and completely forgot to give you the nuts and bolts.

(01:12)

So I told myself I would not forget to do that with night prayers. And one of the things I like to address upfront is the length of the book. I find the length of the book to be an extremely important factor in any book, whether it's a work of fiction or whether it's a piece of non-fiction. And this book is 320 pages. It's a moderately paced book that reads pretty much as a 300-page book would read, at least in my opinion, from the pacing. One of the things that I will always reiterate in challenges for anyone who isn't used to reading literary work as opposed to reading say, a piece of genre fiction, is that even if it's billed as a suspenseful novel, there's less suspense. There just is. And that's typically because the book does not rely solely on the plot to move it along, although this book definitely does have a larger plot element to it and a large crime element to it, in general, that's typically why the book will move at a little bit of slower pace.

(02:17)

It's just not designed to be a page-turning novel. It's just a function of what literary fiction is. But what I will always try to remind you is that what books sometimes lack in pace and speed, they gain in thematical impact, right? You're able to kind of soak in what is happening and try to think about it in a little deeper way, and by doing that, you usually are able to go deeper into the character. Not always, and I will say that for me, I like books that move fast. With that being said, going into a book, knowing that it's a literary book or that it's going to move a bit slower, I go in with the right expectation and I'm able to appreciate it for what it is. And so I don't get annoyed by it as much I think, or at least in my experience, believing something to be something it's not and then being let down is way worse than going in knowing that this is what it's going to be.

(03:19)

And so you may find that over time, if you know you're not used to reading literary work, you might like it better, or you might like it worse. For me, personally, like I said, I willingly make the trade-off of speed for Thematical impact when I am picking up a book that is billed as literary. So enough about that. Now let me tell you a little bit of what you can expect from the story, and I don't want to share too much because I don't like to ruin the story, but you got to have a little bit of something, right? And so what you should know is that this story is about two siblings, Manuel and Juana who grow up in Colombia, and Manuel is the younger brother, Juana is the older sister, and one day she goes missing, and then the story is basically about Manuel's search for Juana.

(04:12)

And on that search, he finds himself in his own predicament and is accused of drug trafficking in Bangkok arrested, and then basically given an ultimatum to either plead guilty or receive the death penalty. Naturally, this creates quite a predicament for young Manuel. Meanwhile, you'll learn that WA never really went missing more, so she became a high-priced escort and fled the country for her own very specific reasons. Gumbo is very frank, I would say, in his depiction of sex and drugs and violence, but he's not overly graphic, and so I want you to consider that, right? Frank and graphic are two different qualities, and I'm not always a fan of graphic, but I'm typically always a fan of frank. I like an author who isn't afraid to be unbridled or raw or edgy or upfront about some of the unflattering aspects of humanity. And Gamboa definitely, definitely confronts that and does that in a masterful way.

(05:23)

I will say that Gamboa is also heralded as probably one of Latin America's most important writers, and that is the reason why I picked up the book in the first place. I typically really, really enjoy translated books, good ones, of course, I read them quite a bit. You will probably hear more of them on the podcast eventually, specifically some Japanese authors that I like, like Fuminori Nakamura and Haruki Murakami, but I won't get into them too much right now. I think more importantly, I should say why I enjoy translated novels, and mostly that's because what you avoid in a translated book is American rhetoric or American politically charged ideas, so to speak. And a lot of times what you will get is an outsider's perspective on America, not always because if they're not commenting on it or if it's not part of the story or part of the narrative, then you wouldn't.

(06:23)

But you do get that sometimes and sometimes that outside look really gives you an interesting perspective on how we're viewed internationally. And it's definitely something you get when you travel, but it's also something you get when you read books that are translated because like I said, you don't have the same inbred cultural influences and the things that are affecting your perception of what is important and what is not important and hardships and all different kinds of stuff that are important, but you avoid that perspective bubble that comes with only reading American writers, especially if you're like to read in a specific decade or something of that nature because you'll find that thematically, a lot of the books are similar, at least in a specific genre, in a specific time span. But I don't want to get too much into that. I just wanted to note why I enjoy reading translated books and why I will continue to read translated books, it's really just another take on variation and how much I enjoy that.

(07:33)

Just a couple more things. There are a few different point-of-views, so you'll get Juan's point of view, you'll get Manuel's point of view, but you'll also get this other point of view, which happens every third chapter or so, called Inter-Neta Monologues, and I'll leave that up to you as the reader to decide how that affects the story. I think it adds some context and texture to the novel. It's probably open for interpretation and trying to pinpoint exactly its purpose is not always easy, and that's sort of the fun part of having something like this in a novel. But don't let it deter you either because if I had to be totally honest, I found them to be pretty entertaining. It's a little weird, it's a little interesting, but I think that it does definitely add to the book. Other than that, I think that the book is just written super well.

(08:26)

Obviously, it's witty, it's subtle, and I think that that's where a lot of the power is. Every few pages I found myself stopping to jot down a line or a quote from the novel because a lot of times they just were so penetrating, they made you stop and think about your own life quotes, like, “Solitude accentuates what you have inside you.” Man, when I read that, I was like, it's so true. We're so influenced and we're so caught up in everything. It's hard to understand what you have inside you, right? It's crazy or a quote. It's incredible how little we know of the people we love. That one just stung. It hurt when I read it, but it's painfully true in a lot of ways, or this one was real tough. “One Mistake we make when we're young is to believe that people who are interested in the same things as we are must necessarily be similar to us.”

(09:27)

That's just a tough pill to swallow. And then lastly, the last quote that I had jotted down was when you know the right thing to do, the hard thing is not to do it. And this is sort of counterintuitive, and for a long time I believed that “the hard thing is always the right thing to do.” That's a line from an artist I love, Jason Isbell. It's in one of his songs, but when I read this quote, “When you know the right thing to do, the hard thing is not to do it.” I felt like it got a much bigger truth in that when you know the thing that you have to do, it eats at you so much that not doing it is actually harder than doing it. If you want to read things like that, that really makes you think and reflect then Night Prayers is probably a good book for you.

(10:22)

A book that will introduce you to some really big thematical ideas, one being what it's like to possess different and diverging viewpoints from the people you love and the challenges with that, especially as you grow and the disenchantment that could really arise around that as you get older. But at the same time, it's sort of a reminder to be hopeful probably more than anything else, it's a good reminder of what it's like to grow up in another country because you get a really good look at some of the challenges that exist outside of the US. And lastly, I think it's about sticking up for what you believe in at any cost. There's a lot of downside to that idea and there's some upside to it as well, but I think that that's where the juxtaposition is really interesting, what is the point at which you should give up on what you believe in?

(11:19)

Is there a point at which you should give up for what you believe in, say the cost of your life or the cost of someone else's life? For most things or cliches, never give up on what you believe in. Usually, there's a point at which you would consider, should I? And I think with that question specifically, this book will get at it and maybe help you answer it or at least examine it in a pretty meaningful or deep way. But don't forget that there is a crime element and there is resolution, so it's not a completely drifting book that's going to leave you in some la la land. I just happen to like some of these more nuanced features, and you might as well or you might not, and that's totally up to you as a reader. I want to remind you that if this wasn't the style of book for you just stick around, because next week I will feature a completely different book in a completely different genre, and perhaps that one will be more your taste or more your style.

(12:17)

With that being said, I hope you enjoyed this episode and I want to thank you if you are supporting this podcast and the initiative of inspiring more men to read and bringing together men who do because that is the most important thing, and you can continue that support by subscribing or following or rating the show on whatever podcast provider you listen to this on. And of course, please continue to share the podcast individually with friends, family members, especially men who read. But this is not an exclusionary podcast, so women are more than welcome. It's not the point of the show, as I've mentioned multiple times here, the only point is to inspire more men to read and bring together men who do, and we need women to do that just as much as we need men to do that. Lastly, remember, you could visit BooksforMen.org for more information where you can also sign up for the newsletter, which is a monthly roundup of all the books and authors that you hear on the podcast.

(13:34)

So if you stuck around all the way until the end, I'm going to reward you. Similar to what we did in the first couple of episodes, this is just going to really be a little snippet from the book. I felt sorta obligated to share this because if you're a writer, I found it to be kind of screwed up, but at the same time a love letter, and so this is a snippet from the book that I wanted to share with you. “You realize you're a writer when the things that swirl or echo in your head won't let you concentrate on anything else. Neither reading nor watching a movie nor listening to what other people are saying, not even your teacher or your best friend. When your girlfriend yells, you're not listening to me and slams the door and takes off and you exclaim what a relief and keep thinking about your things. It's a relief when our loved ones leave us alone. If what's happening inside your head is more powerful than what's outside and can't be translated into sentences, you're a writer. If you don't write, then you should think about it. It might suit you. If you are a writer, the worst thing is not to write the bad news given the times we live in is that you can also tell yourself you're really fucked.”