Haunted by guilt and reeling from his shattered marriage, New York photographer Ethan flees south to a Central American country on the brink of revolution.
One of the most impressive debuts I've read. A hybrid narrative that's part thriller, part surreal noir, and part tropical gothic, it reads like a collaboration between William Faulkner, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, and Hunter S. Thompson, as directed by David Lynch ... The beauty of Horse Latitudes comes from its combination of elements. It's firmly rooted in literary fiction, but branches out into pulpy adventure and thrillers — and it hides a scathing political critique under the surface ... There is something special in this book that I wasn't expecting, and that doesn't jump out at you immediately: surrealism ... The writing is superb. Collins has a knack for witty dialogue and vivid descriptions of shantytowns, coastal towns, guerilla violence, and roadside poverty. Unfortunately, the beautiful prose that makes most of the novel so enjoyable gets in the way towards the end ... gripping and wildly entertaining ... Morris Collins is an author to watch.
Vivid in the visual detail a photographer would gather, Collins’ politically complex and psychologically intense tale demands the reader’s complete submersion in a decaying world in which the lines between good and evil sway and vanish ... Though the plot twists like that of a thriller and authentic characters keep the story moving, Collins’ underlying theme of why choices are made and what the consequences are makes for a philosophically compelling read.
Violent, heartbreaking, and starkly real ... a historically attuned novel for a world that has lost its way ... Details here are realistic, and their warnings are somber ... a novel with the edge of the thriller and the bleak rawness of a documentary—feral, needful, and unapologetic about the dark underbellies it reveals.
