The real Andorra is a land-locked country situated between Spain and France. It has 77,000 people who live in its capital, Andorra La Vella, or in the surrounding mountains. Its primary industry is tourism: a mix of skiers, duty-free shoppers, and day trippers looking to add a new stamp to their passport and get a Hard Rock Cafe Andorra t-shirt as a souvenir.
The fictional Andorra is a coastal nation situated between Spain and France, and its capital is a town called La Plata. It also has a tiny population, a large percentage of which seem to be ex-pats from English-speaking countries. It has a mountainous region, but it doesn’t seem to have done a thing to go after the ski crowd.
But the fiction draws on something very real: the appeal of a place where you can start over because no one knows who you are. With the ski crowd in particular, there are enough part-time residents and long-term visitors that a new face would blend in, and just enough of an ex-pat community that you could make some acquaintances to avoid total isolation. I got it; I was looking into residency requirements. Even if we have not committed a crime or experienced a tragedy, the idea of really getting away from it all (with excellent Internet and good food) has a lot of charm. The characters in this book, however, have reasons to want to get away, we just don’t know what they are.
I was caught up in these characters. I was caught up in their drama and wanted to know more. This is a good novel to read right now, because you can imagine a location while following the plot. I’m not the only one; this novel has been made into a movie that is supposed to be released soon. T
I also want to go to Andorra and maybe take an apartment for a few months. Should I make up a mysterious past?
