Dream Jungle

By: Jessica Hagedorn

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

Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

©2003 Jessica Hagedorn (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“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