Published in 2017
272 pages
Julianne Pachico was born in 1985 in Cambridge, England. She grew up in Cali, Colombia, where her parents worked in international development as agricultural social scientists.
In 2004 she moved to Portland, Oregon, where she completed her B.A. at Reed College in Comparative Literature. In 2012 she returned to England in order to complete her M.A. in Prose Fiction at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, where she was a recipient of UEA’s Creative Writing International Scholarship.
She is currently completing her PhD in Creative and Critical Writing at UEA on a fully funded fellowship. She had a short story on the long list for the Sunday Times Prize, and is also the only writer to have two stories in the 2015 anthology of the Best British Short Stories. Her short stories have been published by The New Yorker, Lighthouse, Litro, Shooter Literary Magazine and Newwriting.net, among others. She holds dual citizenship in the U.S. and the U.K.
What is this book about?
Set during the peak of Colombia’s drug-fueled conflict, and in New York City, this captivating, kaleidoscopic debut novel centers on a group of high school girls and the people whose lives touch theirs—including their parents, teachers, housekeepers, and the warlords and guerrilla fighters who surround them.
While her parents are away for a holiday weekend in the mountains around Cali, a teenager finds herself home alone for the first time, with the household help mysteriously gone, no phone connection, and news of an insurgency on the radio—and then she hears a knock at the door. The girl’s teacher recites Shakespeare in the jungle to a class of sticks, leaves, and stones, while his captors watch his every move. Another classmate, having escaped Colombia for the clubs of New York, is unable to forget the life she left behind without the help of the little bags of powder she carries with her. Taking place over two decades, The Lucky Ones presents us with a world in which perpetrators are indistinguishable from saviors, the truth is elusive, and people you love can disappear without a trace.
A prismatic tale of a group of characters who emerge and recede throughout the novel and touch one another’s lives in ways even they cannot comprehend, The Lucky Ones captures the intensity of life in Colombia as paramilitaries, guerillas, and drug traffickers tear the country apart. Combining vivid details of life under siege with a hallucinatory feel that befits its violent world, The Lucky Ones introduces a truly original and exciting new voice in fiction.
