Swallowing the Sun tells the story of the impact of Hurricane Mitch on the people of Honduras in October 1998 through the eyes of 13-year old Jose Cruz. At first Jose talks about many of his dreams and nightmares, as his waking world seems unreal, a mudslide destroying most of the houses in his small village, and killing more than half of the inhabitants. But with his father and older siblings missing, Jose has to be decisive and act – he takes the lead in organising supplies of food and water. He also goes in search of help for his fevered younger brother, and acts as a translator for the UN medical team he finds. All the while he tries to keep hoping that his father, brother Victor and sister Ruth will have survived somehow.

Terry Trueman’s much promoted and talked about previous novel, Stuck in Neutral, is a difficult act to follow, and Swallowing the Sun is quite different, but still with vivid, driving present-tense first-person narration. Trueman clearly does not want the lasting impact of Hurricane Mitch to be forgotten, but the devastation depicted in Swallowing the Sun is tempered by some optimistic turns of plot. The extreme circumstances also cause Jose, a second son in the shadow of his older brother, to grow up quickly.

2008-01-01