Anti, a quiet English boy living in Quito, Ecuador, strikes up a friendship with flamboyant classmate Fabián, who is everything Anti isn’t: handsome, athletic and popular. What’s more, he lives with his rakish Uncle Suarez, while Anti is stuck in the dull ex-pat world inhabited by his parents.
Suarez, a storyteller par excellence, infects the boys with his passion for outlandish tales, and before long their relationship becomes one conducted entirely through the telling of tales. One subject, however, is taboo: Fabián’s parents. But when details surrounding their disappearance begin to emerge, Anti decides to console his friend with a story suggesting that Fabián’s mother may be living at a bizarre hospital on the coast for patients with memory loss. With confused emotions and reality losing its grip, the boys embark on a quixotic voyage across Ecuador in search of an’ Amnesia Clinic’ that may, or may not exist.

Author's interview


I enjoyed the storytelling: "All the guinea pigs suddenly fell silent…" I felt that I could smell the old Quito while reading about it. Somewhere in the middle, the adventures of the teenagers were not so interesting, but I think that the book does have a proper ending.
The book represents Ecuador in my “Book from Every Country” Challenge.


Mailed to Aspen72 on 4.12.

Thank you for this interesting book of Ecuador.
Book goes to TBR-pile, but will move to top if other intrested readers appear.

Edit 18.2: dotdot will get this next.

Somehow, all the time within reading, I wanted to know how this book would end, even though this was not quite my piece of cake. Structure of the story was strange in a way. Mostly I became a bit tired of the fake stories, and I started to miss honesty and genuinity, which were present quite seldom. But somehow, I got a vision of Ecuador and high mountains, and thin air, Indians with ponchos....

This book represents also my book from every country challenge, which does not have so many representatives from South America, yet :)

Edit: dotdot will get this book on 7.6.2008
#33 in Keep them moving 2008 challenge

Halvast brought this from Suomenlinna this evening. Thank you, Aspen72.