The Jaguar's Children

By: John Vaillant

Narrated by: David H. Lawrence XVII, Ozzie Rodriguez

Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's summary

Hector is trapped. The water truck, sealed to hide its human cargo, has broken down. The coyotes have taken all the passengers' money for a mechanic and have not returned.

Hector finds a name in his friend Cesar's phone: Annimac. A name with an American number. He must reach her, both for rescue and to pass along the message Cesar has come so far to deliver. But are his messages going through?

Over four days, as water and food run low, Hector tells how he came to this desperate place. His story takes us from Oaxaca -- its rich culture, its rapid change -- to the dangers of the border, exposing the tangled ties between Mexico and El Norte. And it reminds us of the power of storytelling and the power of hope, as Hector fights to ensure his message makes it out of the truck and into the world.

Both an outstanding suspense novel and an arresting window into the relationship between two great cultures, The Jaguar's Children shows how deeply interconnected all of us, always, are.

©2024 John Vaillant (P)2024 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Critic reviews

'An extraordinary feat of literary ventriloquism . . . The horrors of a single passage over the border blossom into a human history of sorrow and suffering, all of it beginning with the thirst to be free' (Alan Cheuse)

'Like Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, The Jaguar's Children will be read for a long time to come. It is a major social novel' (Philipp Meyer, author of The Son)

'Vaillant's triumph is the way he invites readers to know Héctor so intimately . . . This is what novels can do - illuminate shadowed lives, enable us to contemplate our own depths of kindness, challenge our beliefs about fate . . . Vaillant's use of fact to inspire fiction brings to mind a long list of powerful novels from the past decade or so: What Is the What, by Dave Eggers; The Map of Love, by Ahdaf Soueif; The Storyteller, by Jodi Picoult Salvage the Bones," by Jesmyn Ward; "American Woman," by Susan Choi; "Half of a Yellow Sun," by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie . . . What could be more important than carving out an hour or three and opening yourself to the voice of another, to the possibility that a novel will transform you?' (Amanda Eyre Ward)

'[The Jaguar's Children] captures a superhuman will: a young migrant's attempt to escape from the almost airless tank of a water truck that he is trapped inside with fourteen other passengers in southern Arizona' (John Washington)

'The Jaguar's Children is devastating. It's at once a literary mystery, an engrossing tour de force, and a brilliant commentary on humanity's role in the physical world. The voice that echoes out from that abandoned place Vaillant so masterfully creates won't leave me' (Joseph Boyden, author of The Orenda)