Deep Down Dark

"Weaving together the drama of the miners' harrowing ordeal below ground with the anguish of families and rescuers on the surface, Tobar delivers a masterful account of exile and human longing, of triumph in the face of all odds. Taut with suspense and moments of tenderness and replete with a cast of unforgettable characters, Deep Down Dark ranks with the best of adventure literature."—Scott Wallace, The Los Angeles Times

"Chiseled, brooding . . . As Tobar works his way through each miner's recovery, the TV headlines recede from our memory, and a more delicate series of portraits emerges."—Noah Gallagher Shannon, The Washington Post

"Tobar plunges the reader into this world of uncertainty with visceral, present-tense prose and careful pacing . . . Whether the story is completely new to you, or if you were one of the millions glued to the news reports and wondering, will they make it—physically, emotionally, spiritually—you'll be greatly rewarded to learn how they did."—Mac McClelland, The New York Times Book Review

"If Dante's Inferno was a real place, it would look and feel like the subterranean fever dream Héctor Tobar describes in Deep Down Dark. Taking us into the post-apocalyptic landscape of Chile's Atacama Desert and guiding us through the labyrinthine hell of the world's most famous mine accident, Tobar's taut narrative plumbs the depths not only of the mine itself, but of the 33 trapped miners' hearts and souls as they fight for life, and reconcile themselves—first, to death, and then to the far more challenging task of surviving. This revelatory tale of ordinary men surviving under extraordinary circumstances is further proof that we are living in a golden age of nonfiction."—John Vaillant, author of The Golden Spruce and The Tiger

"Héctor Tobar takes us so far down into the story and lives of the Chilean miners that his reconstruction of a workplace disaster becomes a riveting meditation on universal human themes."—George Packer, author of The Unwinding: An Inner History of The New America