Lost City of Z

The impenetrable jungle.

The words conjure a number of images. Vines that clutch. Small serene lakes and rivers that rage and cascade over cliffs. Bright birds and poison frogs. Insects that creep and crawl. Machetes raised and brought down, hack-hacking a trail into green shadow. Natives naked or dressed in skins and feathers, arrows as long as their bodies. And beneath the leafy green, forgotten in the embrace of vines...lost cities, the cultural bones of peoples who are no more.

It is a deadly place.

This much has the author, David Grann, an armchair adventurer, turned journalist, turned Amazonian explorer/documentarian, discovered in his book's opening chapter. He starts his narrative at the end, when his research is done and he has made his own journey into the Amazon. Deep in the jungle, he reveals he has lost his way, his guide, his map and ultimately his obsession. It's clear he will make it out to write and publish his book, but as his full tale reveals, many who lose their way in the jungle are never seen again.

The focus of Grann's book is Col. Percy Fawcett who explored the Amazon region for many years before entering it one last time in hopes of reaching his late life obsession: a lost city known only as "Z". Z is the modern equivalent of the El Dorado legends of the late middle ages and is possibly the same location. Fawcett believed that discovering the city would prove that the Amazon basin, despite it's seemingly inhabitable nature, had once supported a civilization that would have rivaled its European counterparts. So certain was he, that when he entered the jungle for the last time, in 20 April, 1925, he took his own son, and his son's best friend as his travelling companions. On May 29, they sent their last communication and were never heard from again.

Grann's book introduces Fawcett and charts his development as one of the great explorers of his era. He was both drawn to the romance of a harsh and mysterious world in which he seemed genetically predisposed to thrive (he never took sick and seemed impervious to many insects), and squeezed out of urban life by the inherent classism of his Victorian society. Part of what makes Grann's narrative so compelling is the social aspects of the various generations who have become generally obsessed with the possibility of lost Amazonian cities and particularly obsessed with discovering what happened to Fawcett's party.

Grann's research touches upon the various expeditions that have sought to find Fawcett - preparation for his own expedition - and it is ominous that none of the expeditions have met with success, and that some, even very recent attempts, have been disastrous.

In the end Grann is indeed rescued from the predicament that set the book's tone and goes on to discover new information concerning Fawcett's end, and the existence of Z. It's a satisfying conclusion to a visceral, multifaceted narrative.

Barnes and Noble named Lost City of Z the best non-fiction title of 2009. Brad Pitt's production company has optioned it for development into a feature film.