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51 pages 1 hour read

David Grann

The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2009

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Key Figures

David Grann (The Author)

A journalist at The New Yorker magazine, Grann discovers the Fawcett mystery while conducting research for a related story. Grann decides to follow Fawcett’s trail, first into the archives and then into the Amazon jungle. The result is a 2005 article in The New Yorker, which Grann expands and then publishes as a book four years later.

Grann’s own story figures prominently in The Lost City of Z. As Fawcett pursues Z, Grann pursues Fawcett, and the two stories run parallel throughout the book. Grann’s research into Fawcett begins at the RGS in London, where Fawcett trained as an explorer more than a century earlier. From there, Grann travels to Wales, where he meets Rolette de Montet-Guerin, Fawcett’s surviving granddaughter. In Fawcett’s logbooks, which Rolette has kept, Grann discovers coordinates for the ill-fated 1925 expedition that differ from coordinates published by Fawcett’s son Brian in the book Exploration Fawcett (1953). Treating this as an important clue, Grann informs his wife Kyra that he intends to go to the Amazon and pick up Fawcett’s trail using those new coordinates.

Grann travels to Sao Paolo, Brazil, and meets James Lynch, a fellow Fawcett-enthusiast who in 1996 launched his own search expedition, which ended when Lynch and 11 of his companions, including his son, James, Jr., were taken captive by natives. From Sao Paolo, Grann heads to Brazil’s National Library in Rio de Janeiro, where he views a mid-18th-century Portuguese document describing the ruins of a large and prosperous ancient city. Grann describes this document as “the final piece of evidence supporting [Fawcett’s] theory of a lost civilization in the Amazon” (178).

Armed with all the written evidence he can find, Grann recruits Paulo Pinage, a former employee at Brazil’s Indian Protection Service, to serve as his guide. After meeting Pinage in Cuiaba, Grann explains the evidence, including the new coordinates, and the two proceed northward along Fawcett’s known route. Outside of Cuiaba, they pick up Taukane Bakairi, a friend of Pinage’s, who agrees to guide them to the last place Fawcett was ever seen. At Bakairi Post, they meet Laurinda (nee: Comaeda Bakairi), an elderly woman who saw the Fawcett party pass through when she was a child in 1925.

Pressing onward, Grann and Pinage meet Vajuvi, the Kalapalo chief, who agrees to guide them into Xingu National Park. At the Kalapalo village, Vajuvi reveals that the Fawcett had passed through in 1925; that the recovered bones reported as Fawcett’s in the 1950s actually belonged to Vajuvi’s grandfather; and that the Fawcett party, when it left the village, had headed east, never to be seen again. Grann’s journey ends in the Kuikuro village, where he meets the archaeologist Michael Heckenberger, whose work both validates Fawcett and highlights the enduring vibrancy of ancient Amazonian civilization. Grann concludes that he has reached Z.

Percy Harrison Fawcett

Born in 1867 to an aristocratic family with declining fortunes, Fawcett becomes an RGS-trained explorer in 1901, leads six different expeditions into the Amazon jungle between 1906 and 1914, uncovers evidence of an ancient civilization that he calls the City of Z, pursues his theory of Z to the point of obsession, and disappears during his final expedition in 1925. Fawcett is The Lost City of Z’s central historical figure, and his pursuit of Z is the book's chief subject.

Fawcett’s story begins in 1888 when, as a 21-year-old artillery officer in the British army stationed at Ceylon, he makes frequent forays into the jungle in search of ancient ruins. He describes his upbringing as “devoid of parental affection” and seems determined to escape civilization at every opportunity (39). At Ceylon he meets Nina Agnes Paterson, who becomes his wife, though not until 1901. In that same year, Fawcett graduates from the training program at the Royal Geographical Society and prepares for a career as an explorer, though he waits five years for his first opportunity. Finally, in 1906, Fawcett leads an expedition tasked with surveying and settling the Brazil-Bolivia border.

In South America, Fawcett acquires an affinity for the jungle that stays with him for the rest of his life. He develops a reputation as an indestructible man, supremely fit, and impervious to illness. He pushes his men to their limits, physically and mentally, and he tolerates no weakness. A handful of his men prove loyal to him and follow him on multiple expeditions while others grow to despise him.

The more he explores, the more unusual evidence he uncovers: shards of ancient pottery strewn everywhere; geometric outlines in the landscape; large settlements of healthy and well-fed natives. He concludes that an ancient civilization must have thrived somewhere deep in the Amazon jungle. He calls this the City of Z. When he reads the 16th-century Spanish conquistadores’ accounts of vast native settlements with large populations, he concludes that these descriptions correspond with his own observations. He is determined to find Z.

World War I interferes with Fawcett’s plans. For four years, he languishes in the trenches, becomes mentally and spiritually alienated from civilization, and dreams of Z. After the war, his obsession intensifies. He will find Z at any cost, including the impoverishment of his wife and children. In 1920, he leads a small expedition and then in 1921 embarks on a solo mission, both of which end in failure. Finally, in 1924, he secures funding for an expedition in search of Z, which generates substantial public interest in both Britain and America. While leading this expedition in 1925, Fawcett vanishes.

Nina Fawcett

In 1888, Nina Agnes Paterson meets Percy Harrison Fawcett in Ceylon. They are engaged in 1890, but Fawcett ends the engagement due to scurrilous rumors about Nina’s character. Heartbroken, Nina eventually recovers and marries an Army captain, but her first husband’s death in 1897 leaves her free to reconnect with Fawcett, whom she marries in 1901. Together, Nina and Percy Fawcett have three children: Jack, Brian, and Joan.

Confined to domestic pursuits, Nina lives vicariously through her husband but also serves as his chief and ablest advocate. As he grows more paranoid about competitors in the search for Z, Fawcett devises a written code that allows him to communicate with his wife, which suggests that he trusts Nina above all others. Fawcett, however, is also restless, so he sometimes leaves Nina at home alone with the children for years at a time while he explores South America. His obsession exhausts the family’s resources and compels Nina to live on the edge of poverty.

Notwithstanding her husband’s obsessive and destructive pursuits, Nina leaves no surviving evidence of resentment toward him. After he disappears, she corresponds with would-be rescuers, consults psychics, and never stops hoping for his return. She dies shortly after reading her son Brian’s draft of Exploration Fawcett, which is published in 1953.

Jack Fawcett

Eldest child of Nina and Percy Fawcett, Jack comes of age aching to follow in his father’s footsteps. Jack disappears in 1925 along with his father and Raleigh Rimell.

In The Lost City of Z, Jack appears primarily as a dutiful son eager to win his father’s approval and one day accompany him on an adventure. Jack follows his father’s diet and exercise regimen, which enables him to grow into a physically powerful young man. During the family’s brief stay in Los Angeles, Jack apparently aspires to become an actor, but his focus never strays far from his ultimate goal of following his father into the Amazon. When the opportunity comes in 1925, Jack relishes it. As the expedition unfolds, he appears to grow stronger. He vanishes shortly after his 22nd birthday.

Brian Fawcett

Second child of Nina and Percy Fawcett, Brian lives in his older brother’s shadow and develops none of Jack’s disposition to follow his father. In fact, Brian recalls that things were easier at home when his father was gone: “I felt relieved when he was out of the way” (116).

In later years, long after the Fawcett expedition vanished, Brian begins looking into his father’s story. He investigates his father’s logbooks and diaries. He becomes immersed in his father’s search for Z. In 1953, Brian publishes Exploration Fawcett, which Nina reads with tremendous enthusiasm. Brian even conducts his own aerial search of the Amazon, though he eventually comes to believe that his father’s search for Z might have been allegorical, a kind of spiritual journey.

Raleigh Rimell

Jack Fawcett’s best friend, Raleigh Rimell joins the Fawcett expedition and disappears along with the others in 1925.

Rimell does not appear to have been a reluctant participant in the expedition, but he soon sours on it. Having fallen in love with a young woman on the journey to South America, Raleigh begins talking of nothing but starting a family and what he plans to do when he returns home. He loses interest in Z, which never exercised the spellbinding power on him that it did on the others. Fawcett encourages his son’s friend to abandon the expedition and return with the guides, but Raleigh chooses to continue.

Paulo Pinage

A 52-year-old former employee of Brazil’s Indian Protection Service, Pinage serves as Grann’s guide from Cuiaba into the Amazon jungle. Without Pinage, Grann stands little chance of reaching his destination, which lies inside the Xingu National Park. Pinage successfully negotiates for the help of Vajuvi Kalapalo, who guides Grann and Pinage into the park. Pinage also accompanies Grann to the Kuikuro village, where they meet Michael Heckenberger.

Michael Heckenberger

An accomplished archaeologist from the University of Florida, Heckenberger meets Grann in the Kuikuro village. Grann learns that Afukaka, the Kuikuro chief, has adopted Heckenberger into the tribe. Heckenberger also reveals impressive archaeological evidence of an ancient civilization in the region where Fawcett expected to find Z. In fact, Heckenberger has unearthed 20 such settlements nearby, all of which contain features that survive in the modern Kuikuro village as well as features Fawcett described in his travels.

Although he appears only in the book’s final chapter (he is mentioned earlier, but Grann does not meet him until the end), Heckenberger plays an important role as an authoritative counterweight to the historian John Hemming, Grann’s most severe critic.

James Lynch

In 1996, Lynch organizes and leads an expedition in search of clues to the Fawcett mystery. A banker from Sao Paulo who has become fascinated with the Fawcett story, Lynch brings state-of-the-art equipment along with an airplane. Near the Kuikuro village, Lynch and 11 of his companions, including his 16-year-old son, James Jr., are kidnapped by local natives.

When Grann arrives in Sao Paulo nine years later, he meets with Lynch, who describes his ordeal and the ransom he gave the natives in exchange for the group’s freedom. Notwithstanding the harrowing experience, Lynch wishes Grann well, tells Grann that he wishes he could accompany him, and encourages Grann to find a trustworthy guide.

Vajuvi Kalapalo

Chief of the Kalapalos in 2005, Vajuvi guides Grann and Pinage into Xingu National Park. Outside the park, Vajuvi negotiates with Grann and Pinage using methods that have characterized Native-European diplomacy for centuries. At the Kalapalo village, Vajuvi reveals that the much-publicized bones, presented to the world in the 1950s as proof of Fawcett’s demise, actually belonged to Vajuvi’s grandfather. Vajuvi also explains that the Kalapalos welcomed Fawcett in 1925 and tried to save his party from destruction, but the three Englishmen left the village, traveled east, and disappeared. Vajuvi provides his final service by guiding Grann and Pinage to the Kuikuro village.

Henry Costin

Costin accompanies Fawcett on multiple expeditions into the Amazon. Unlike others who tire of the demanding and unapproachable Fawcett, Costin seems to relish the challenges and respect the man. Costin’s letters home provide important source material for Fawcett’s expeditions. Costin also describes exploring the jungle in the most succinct-yet-colorful expression of a sentiment that made him one of Fawcett’s kindred spirits: “It’s hell all right, but one kind of likes it” (140).

James Murray

A veteran of Antarctic exploration, Murray accompanies Fawcett on his 1911 exploration of the Heath River. Murray develops an assortment of injuries and maladies that prevent him from keeping pace with Fawcett. When it appears as if Murray will die, Fawcett considers abandoning him, but he reconsiders, diverts his mission, and helps guide Murray to safety. When he recovers his health and strength, Murray publicly denounces Fawcett. One year later, Murray vanishes while exploring the Canadian Arctic.

Murray appears in the book as perhaps the most high-profile example of a fellow explorer who came to despise Fawcett.

Dr. Alexander Hamilton Rice

An American multimillionaire, Dr. Rice explores the Amazon using airplanes and radio. A paranoid Fawcett comes to regard Dr. Rice as his chief rival in the search for Z, though it is never clear whether Dr. Rice is even searching for Z. Dr. Rice’s inexhaustible resources place Fawcett at a severe disadvantage.

Dr. Rice’s presence looms large in Fawcett’s fears, but the rival does not appear to have any direct contact with the Fawcetts until after Fawcett disappears. In 1927, Dr. Rice visits Nina to offer consolation and assurances that if anyone can survive in the jungle, Fawcett can. Nina asks Dr. Rice to lead a search party, but Dr. Rice, now 50 and retired from exploration, declines.

Edward Ayearst Reeves

Reeves serves as the RGS’s map curator from 1900 to 1933. When Fawcett arrives at the RGS in 1900, he is greeted by Reeves, who tests Fawcett’s skills and guides Fawcett toward the classes and materials he needs to complete the explorer’s training program. For the rest of his life, Reeves remains one of Fawcett’s strongest supporters. After Fawcett’s disappearance, Reeves even turns to the spiritual realm, attending seances in hopes of learning his friend’s fate.

Rolette de Montet-Guerin

Granddaughter of Percy and Nina Fawcett and daughter of Joan Fawcett, Rolette has preserved her grandfather’s logbooks and diaries. Grann visits Rolette in Wales in 2005. Rolette reveals that the family always referred to her grandfather as “PHF.” In Fawcett’s logbooks, Grann finds coordinates that differ from the ones published in Exploration Fawcett. He treats this as an important clue. Rolette also shows Grann a picture of Fawcett’s ring, recovered from Brazil in 1979. According to a psychic, the ring “had been bathed in blood” (106).

Laurinda (Comaeda) Bakairi

At Bakairi Post in 2005, Grann and Pinage meet Laurinda, the oldest woman in the village. Laurinda, the last living eyewitness to the Fawcett expedition, indicates that in 1925, when she was a child, the three Englishmen came through Bakairi Post. She recalls that the explorers stayed in a schoolhouse that no longer existed, which corresponds with Jack Fawcett’s description of their stay in the village. Laurinda also explains that her real name is Comaeda Bakairi, but in the 1920s Brazilian officials forced her to take a new name as part of a plan to assimilate the Bakairi by eradicating tribal identities.

Ernest Holt

Holt accompanies Fawcett on a 1920 expedition in search of Z, which proves a disastrous failure. A “sensitive young man” from Alabama who “aspired to be a naturalist-explorer in the mold of Darwin,” Holt struggles to endure both the jungle’s harsh conditions and Fawcett’s relentless demands (202-03). Rather than leave Holt to die, Fawcett calls off the expedition and returns empty-handed. When he recovers, Holt offers to accompany Fawcett on another expedition, but Fawcett declines and begins planning for the day when his son Jack can join him.

George Lynch

In 1924, Lynch secures funding for Fawcett’s ill-fated expedition, though not without drama. Lynch sells the story rights to a North American newspaper consortium, which insists on regular dispatches from the field. Lynch also generates interest in scientific circles. The capable fundraiser and promoter, however, proves untrustworthy and dissolute. In New York, Fawcett finds Lynch “drunk and surrounded by prostitutes” (219). Most of the funding comes through, however, and the press attention brings even more of it, allowing Fawcett and his two young companions to begin their journey to South America.

George Dyott

In 1928, Dyott leads the first expedition in search of the vanished Fawcett party. He concludes that local Indigenous people killed the three Englishmen. In the early 1930s, Dyott publishes a book and stars in a movie about his exploits. Brian Fawcett and others, however, identify significant holes in Dyott’s story.

Stefan Rattin

In 1932, Stefan Rattin, a native of Switzerland who had lived in South America for more than two decades, appears at the British Embassy in Sao Paolo and claims to have encountered Fawcett in the jungle. Fawcett, Rattin explains, is being held captive by natives. Rattin’s account includes details that some of Fawcett’s friends and associates find credible. Two months later, Rattin disappears while conducting a search for Fawcett.

Kyra Grann

The author’s wife, Kyra appears in the book’s early chapters, primarily as a reminder of what the author risks by venturing into the dangerous Amazon. When the author shares his (still half-baked) plans to follow Fawcett’s trail, Kyra replies: “I hope you know what you’re doing” (36). When he shows her what he plans to wear into the jungle, she tells him: “You’re not giving me a whole lot of confidence” (75). The book is dedicated to her.

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