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Praise for The Lost Civilization of Suolucidir
“Daitch’s fantastically fun novel has shades of Umberto Eco and Paul Auster and is brainy, escapist fiction at its best. Structured like a Russian nesting doll, the book conceals several overlapping tales centered on the search for the mythical lost city of Suolucidir. The novel begins with grad student Ariel Bokser’s present-day search for the city, located somewhere in modern day Iran. The book then shifts to the heart of its story, the so-called Nieumacher papers, an inheritance from Ariel’s father (a consulting mineralogist for a mining company) that relates the narrative of Sidonie and Bruno Nieumacher’s quest for Suolucidir, beginning in 1936. The Nieumachers are a husband and wife; he’s a rare book forger and she’s a law student, and they are fleeing the West as much as they are searching in the East for Suolucidir. Setting off under the guidance of Bruno’s former Berlin professor, now a black market profiteer, the duo brave adversity to find the lost city, dodging British agents and Russian spies. The book then shifts further back in time to the story of Hilliard and Congreaves, two mismatched British explorers who met at the Possum Club, an explorer society, and who set off in 1914 in search of fabled fortune and instead encounter their fate. Daitch has constructed an intricate, absorbing narrative. The novel is like a Scheherazade tale, never quite giving the reader time or reason to pause. What exactly is Suolucidir? Lost city of the Hebrew tribes? A stand-in for colonialism’s heart of darkness? Wisely, the MacGuffin remains elusive. As one character says, ‘Invisible cities sometimes leave no trace of themselves. Who knows what cities lay under our feet?’ Perhaps Suolucidir is real, and still out there, awaiting discovery.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review
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She wasn’t alone in her derision; my academic advisers also threw cold water on the idea of the lost city. If the subject of Suolucidir was raised, I was reminded about the paucity of evidence and told that the Nieumacher relics were now, after the intervening years of turmoil in the region, unlocatable, and perhaps had been fraudulently manufactured in the first place. I was warned that the artifacts the Victorians, Hilliard and Congraves, had sent back to the British Museum were in all probability just negligible offshoots of the Burnt City civilization, a city-state that had flourished to the north of the reputed site of Suolucidir. Even if I traveled to London to examine them, I would find the bits and pieces were merely evidence of far-flung provincial villages, not worthy of serious study. It was all deeply discouraging.
We were on the F train, and it had stalled above ground. It was late at night, and the car was empty except for a couple of snoozing subway workers in orange vests, tool boxes at their feet, and a man sitting directly opposite us who was immersed in a Russian newspaper. Light reflected off the oily surface of the Gowanus Canal and the huge Kentile Flooring sign while searchlights scoped the sky signaling the opening of a store somewhere to the west of the tracks. Ruth was staring glassy-eyed at the furry skunkweed that managed to grow between the rails of the train when it was above ground. Maybe it wasn’t the best moment to have a discussion of this kind, but whether the canal inspired me or the searchlights it’s hard to say. I just plunged right in. I tried, one more time, to interest Ruth in Suolucidir.
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