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"  Published in the August 2013 issue The Sound of Things Falling (Riverhead, $19), by Juan Gabriel V\u00E1squez, is a novel made up of searing images: a hippopotamus, recently escaped from Pablo Escobar&amp;#039;s personal zoo, put down by a .375 bullet, then carved into chunks before being carried away. An ex-con listening to an unlabeled cassette tape on headphones, tears streaming down his face. A purple vibrator left on a coffee table as if it were an abandoned baby&amp;#039;s toy. A woman&amp;#039;s face, pale eyes and weathered skin, that looks &amp;quot;like a party that everyone had left.&amp;quot; V\u00E1squez&amp;#039;s descriptions are unvarnished and urgent, and often uncomfortably intimate, one reason he&amp;#039;s been heralded by some as the next great South American literary star. This, his third novel, is about how history \u2014 in this case, the violent Colombian drug war \u2014 never fully recedes. We may bury our past, but some part of the burden always remains, festering below the surface like a memory you can&amp;#039;t forget. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a24044/sound-of-things-falling-apart-review-0813/>