Julianne Pachico

For readers of The Vegetarian and Friday Black, The Anthill is an intoxicating literary ghost story about a young woman returning home to seek redemption for a past she can't remember. Lina has come home to the country of her childhood. Sent away from Colombia to England after her mother's death twenty years before, she's searching for the one person who can tell her about their shared past. She's never forgotten Matty, her childhood friend and protector, who now runs The Anthill, a day care refuge for the street kids of Medellín. Lina begins volunteering there, but her reunion with Matty is not what she hoped for. Medellín is entering a new era, and Matty appears to have taken the city's attempts to redefine itself post-conflict to heart. He has no interest in discussing the past and his enigmatic behavior puts Lina on guard. And then, strange happenings start taking place at The Anthill: violent scratches appear on the inside of the supply closet door, kids make disturbing crayon drawings and insist they've seen a small boy with pointy teeth. Did Lina bring these disturbances with her? Is this a vision of the boy she once knew, or something more sinister? And what will her search for atonement cost Matty? A visceral, hallucinatory ride by an author who has been called "blunt, fresh, and unsentimental" (The New York Times Book Review) and "remarkably inventive" (The Atlantic), The Anthill is a searingly honest exploration of how privilege can corrupt good intentions and what healing might look like--for both a person and a country--in the wake of horror.

The Anthill

Jasper

     LINA AND MATTY LINA AND MATTY LINA AND MATTY LINA AND MATTY

     Can you finally hear me, at long last?

It's funny - you'd think that memory is a safe place, something desirable. That the past is a comforting location you can always return to - childhood as the only homeland, the one true nation we can all migrate to. But what exactly is so good about bringing out what's hidden? Doesn't looking into the light cause your eyes to burn?

The Anthill quotes

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