Dream Jungle

By: Jessica Hagedorn

Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Ramón de Ocampo, Rona Figueroa, Jessica Hagedorn, Robin Miles, Julian Remulla

One of Jessica Hagedorn's most daring novels—“a deft and complex tale of corruption, fealty, and integrity” (The Baltimore Sun)

In a Philippines of desperate beauty and rank corruption, two seemingly unrelated events occur: the discovery of an ancient lost tribe living in a remote mountainous area and the arrival of a celebrity-studded, American film crew, there to make an epic Vietnam War movie. But the lost tribe may be a clever hoax and the Hollywood movie seems doomed as the cast and crew continue to self-destruct in a cloud of drugs and ego. As the consequences of these events play out, four unforgettable characters—a wealthy, iconoclastic playboy; a woman ensnared in the sex industry; a Filipino-American writer; and a jaded actor—find themselves drawn irrevocably together in this lavish, sensual portrait of a nation in crisis.

Critic reviews

Praise for Dream Jungle:

“Masterly . . . [Hagedorn’s] best book since Dogeaters.” —The New York Times Book Review

“With her flair for evoking place, her ability to construct strong, believable characters and a keen sense of both the political and the cultural impact of America on the Philippines, Hagedorn has woven a deft and complex tale of corruption, fealty and integrity.” —The Baltimore Sun

“A richly intriguing study of flamboyant ambition and the politics of corruption . . . Hagedorn’s prose has the exciting ring of the new . . . she has the gift of making the surreal intimate, yet ringed in circles of strangeness, violence and beauty. . . Dream Jungle creates a compelling symphony of voices and yet is one voice . . . delivering the emotional charge of politics, race, and class.” —The Seattle Times

“Hagedorn offers a rich immediacy of detail and characters . . . [she] is a trustworthy guide, her navigation from the depths of the jungle to the seediest corners of Manila to the ostentatious mansions lining the city’s so-called ‘Hollywood Hills’ is so assured that the juxtaposition of these places, however surreal, seems as perfectly rational as a dream.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“As beautiful as summer, as unforgettable as heartbreak . . . [A] luminous performance.” —Junot Diaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao