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    Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free
    Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free
    Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free
    Audiobook13 hours

    Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free

    Written by Héctor Tobar

    Narrated by Henry Leyva

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Deep Down Dark is the novel that inspired the film The 33 starring Lou Diamond Phillips, Cote de Pablo and Antonio Banderas.

    When the San José mine collapsed outside of Copiapó, Chile, in August 2010, it trapped thirty-three miners beneath thousands of feet of rock for a record-breaking sixty-nine days. After the disaster, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Héctor Tobar received exclusive access to the miners and their tales, and in Deep Down Dark, he brings them to haunting, visceral life. We learn what it was like to be imprisoned inside a mountain, understand the horror of being slowly consumed by hunger, and experience the awe of working in such a place-underground passages filled with danger and that often felt alive. A masterwork of narrative journalism and a stirring testament to the power of the human spirit, The 33: Deep Down Dark captures the profound ways in which the lives of everyone involved in the catastrophe were forever changed.

    A Finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award
    A Finalist for a Los Angeles Times Book Prize
    A New York Times Book Review Notable Book
    Selected for NPR's Morning Edition Book Club

    Editor's Note

    In the news…

    A dangerous operation safely rescued all 12 boys and their coach from a cave in Thailand. In 2010, 33 Chilean miners were saved after being trapped deep below ground for 69 days.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Audio
    Release dateOct 7, 2014
    ISBN9781427244529
    Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free
    Author

    Héctor Tobar

    HECTOR TOBAR is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and a novelist. He is the author of The Barbarian Nurseries, Translation Nation and The Tattooed Soldier. The son of Guatemalan immigrants, he is a native of the city of Los Angeles, where he lives with his wife and three children.

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    Reviews for Deep Down Dark

    4/5

    28 ratings20 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Deep Down Dark is the official miner's account of the 2010 Copiapó mining accident. There have been a few other books but they are unauthorized and not written with the co-operation of the miners. The 33 miners agreed to tell their story as a group to a single author and chose LA journalist Héctor Tobar. There is also a movie coming out soon. This book was chosen as one of the NY Times 100 Notable Books of 2014.It is cinematic, easy to read and well paced. If you don't read many books about survival it will be appealing but as an adventure story the material Tobar had to work with is average. Other than the initial cave-in very little went wrong and the ending is already well known. They were hot, hungry, grumpy "knuckleheads" impatient to get out. The unspoken heroes here are the engineers who designed the drills and equipment that made the rescue possible. As well the technology of broadcast media probably saved their lives, but fame is a double-edge sword.
    • 4/5
      Tobar's moving account of the 33 Chilean miners who were trapped underground for 96 days is a must-read for anyone interested in the tragic and inspiring ordeal they went through. Tobar conducted many interviews with the miners, their families and others connected to the saga. He also made himself familiar with mining in general, the San Jose mine in specific as well as the history of the area. I was most pleased with his tendency to remind us who each miner is when he begins talking about him "Alex Vega, whose wife refused to kiss him goodbye the morning of August 5..." or "Franklin Lobos, the former soccer star..." Otherwise, it would have been much more difficult to keep track of who was who. As it is, some of the miners don't factor into the story much at all and others almost dominate the narrative. Tobar does well by the miners as he tries to be objective painting each man as neither hero nor villain, just a man who was placed in extraordinary circumstances. Each man is sympathetic and real. I am glad the miners' official account was handled so well.
    • 5/5
      This book is a stupendously riveting book which at times affected me emotionally.. The account of the drill finally reaching the entrapped miners I found stupendously enthralling. The men were entombed Aug 5, 2010, and had very little food till the drilling found where they were on 22 Aug 2010. Then a gigantic effort to drill a path by which the men could be extracted from the mine went on till that was accomplished after 69 days from the time of the collapse. Since we all know they were rescued one could endure the tension--if one had not known reading the book would have been too suspense-ridden to be endured. The account of the difficulties many of the rescued miners had to recover from their ordeal is set out with care. The book could not help but remind me of the book Alive, by Piers Paul Read, which I read 10 June 1989, and which was the best book I read in that year. As of now, at least, Deep Down Dark is a prime candidate for best book I read in 2015.
    • 4/5
      Back in 2010 I was glued to the television watching the news coverage of the trapped Chilean miners. I just couldn't believe what had happened. So when I found out about this book I knew that I had to read it. With all the media coverage of what happened I thought I knew a lot about what happened but this book really have me a look into the lives of the miners.This book is really good at explaining what happened but also telling you more about each of the miners. I really enjoyed reading about each of the men and their families. Certain things had been misreported back in 2010, like that Yonni's mistress and wife didn't know about each other when they really did, so it was nice getting certain things cleared up. The author received a lot of his information from interviewing the miners and their families and I feel like most of the time he kept the story balanced but there seemed to be sometimes where a certain person's opinions colored the story (I felt like the author seemed a bit more biased towards Yonni's lover and not his wife).For those who were riveted back in 2010 with what happened then this will be a great read. This is also great for those who just want to know more about what happened.
    • 5/5
      The 33 Chilean miners chose Hector Tobar to tell their story and he does a marvelous job for them. He makes the story so much more real by focusing on more than just the cohesiveness and courage they were known for. He tells of their fears and privations in the 17 days before contact was made with them and then, after contact, the antagonisms and frustrations that developed while they waited for rescue. He fills in their back stories to make individuals of them and tells a bit of their lives in the time after they were rescued. This is a thoughtful, well written book as well as an exciting story. I'd highly recommend it.
    • 4/5
      I highly enjoyed this audiobook. I remember being riveted to this story as it unfolded on TV. And again, as I listened to this story, I was riveted. I found myself worried for the miners even though I knew exactly how the story was going to unfold and that all the men would survive. I recommend this audiobook.
    • 3/5
      I remember being stunned by the story of 33 miners trapped deep in a Chilean mine five years ago. While trapped they agreed to work collectively on the book and movie telling their tale. For the book, they engaged the Pulitzer Prize winning Hector Tobar to write the story. I had high hopes for the book.Perhaps my expectations were too high. I found the book flat. I could not tell the miners apart and they seemed two-dimensional. In reading the book, I came to the conclusion that the miners' story is not as interesting as the situation.
    • 3/5
      The cave in in the Chilean mine was an incredible survival and rescue story and should have made for a great book. Unfortunately I found this book to be plodding in style and it was weighed down with details that felt like filler to me.Perhaps it is just a style of writing that doesn't work well for me but I had to push myself to finish it.
    • 5/5
      NPR's Morning Edition is hosting a book club this year. The book for January, Deep Down Dark, was chosen by Ann Patchett (one of my favorites). It is the story of the 33 men who were trapped for over 2 months in a Chilean mine. There are a number of factors that made me question whether I would like this book. First, I knew the ending. Even if you don't remember the coverage of this tragedy, the subtitle gives it away. Second, the rescue itself involved complex engineering solutions and throughout the process, the 33 men were stuck in the mine. This provides plenty of psychological and relational drama, but I wasn't sure how exciting the storyline would be. Also, with 33 men stuck in the mind and a number of others involved in the rescue effort, I wasn't sure the personal stories would stand out. But Tobar does an excellent job telling the story, propelling the narrative forward, and putting us inside the heads of the men in the mine. I was fascinated by how leaders and routines emerged and how the men survived a seemingly impossible ordeal. Faith and religion played an important role in daily life in the mine, and Tobar shows the variety of ways that faith sustained the men. Even though I knew the ending, Tobar also managed to build suspense about how the men would negotiate the various obstacles they faced. This is a great example of compelling narrative non-fiction.
    • 5/5
      It may not be easy to take thirty-three different lives and write about them in a cohesive narrative that is both informative and spellbinding, but that is exactly what author Hector Tobar managed to do. Little by little, the story of these men, trapped in a mine in Chile, comes to life on the pages of this book. Reading like a novel, this nonfiction book will amaze you in its detailed information of the place and times of this doomed mine. One typical morning, these men left for what they thought would only be an hours-long shift, but without warning, turned into weeks and months of hellish existence. And in this book, the reader learns what these men endured while the world waited for the next news flash. Told in painstaking detail, hearing what they suffered and what was needed to be accomplished to free them, it seems impossible that all made it out alive. But they did. Tobar’s account doesn’t end with their rescue, but continues with their adjustment to normal life again. At times heartbreaking as well as uplifting, it is a fascinating story of spirit and determination, both above and below ground.
    • 5/5

      Deep DownDark
      The Untold Story of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free, by Hector Tobar

      The disaster began on a day shift around lunchtime at a mine in Chile's Atacama Desert: Miners working deep inside a mountain, excavating for copper, gold and other minerals, started feeling vibrations. Suddenly, there was a massive explosion and the passageways of the mine filled up with a gritty dust cloud.

      When the dust slowly began to settle, the men discovered the source of the explosion: A single block of stone, tall as a forty-five-story building, had broken off from the rest of the mountain and fell through the layers of the mine causing a chain reaction as the mountain above it began to collapse.

      Thirty-three miners were sealed inside the mountain by this 770,000 ton megablock of stone. It was twice the weight of the Empire State building. Staring at that flat, smooth wall, Luis Urzua, the crew's supervisor, thought: It's like the stone they rolled over Jesus's tomb.

      1 billion of us viewers around the world watched this horror tale unfold on live TV.

      On Oct. 13, 2010, all 33 of those Chilean miners trapped for 69 days inside the San Jose Mine were raised to the surface of the earth as the mountain seemed to give birth. They were raised through a newly drilled escape tunnel into which a capsule was slowly lowered and raised by a giant crane. It was a feat of engineering and a triumph of faith. Neither the miners buried under half a mile of rock nor their families above ground in a makeshift tent city called Campo Esperanza ever completely succumbed to despair, despite the fact that for 17 days, before a drill finally broke through to "The Refuge," the room where the men were gathered, no one knew whether they were alive. Thankfully they didn't give them up for dead, even though at this time they were on the brink.

      Hector Tobar, a former journalist for the Los Angeles Times, spent three years and hundreds of hours interviewing all 33 miners for his book.

      After what happened, the men organized themselves into work shifts, participated in daily prayer sessions, and rationed their emergency food supply into one meal a day of two cookies and a spoonful of tuna fish, augmented by water drained from industrial waste containers. The water contained oil and other debris, but it was drinkable. Above ground, the mostly female crowd of the miners' families acted collectively too: banging pots and pans to get attention and shouting, "We want information," in police officers' faces.

      On the 69th day, it took 30 minutes to bring each man to the surface and into the arms of loved ones.
    • 3/5
      I was glad to learn more about this incident, but I could feel the struggle the author had putting all the threads together. The movie might actually flow better, but I imagine it will lack accuracy.
    • 5/5
       For the record I hate that my copy of the book has had not only the cover, but the title changed to reflect the upcoming movie. Now on to the review...The writing is very similar to case studies I've read about other disasters (ERs during major Hurricanes, causes of the Macondo well blow-out) in the way critical information is delivered, but it has a very personal and stylistic flow that makes it a more compelling read. It did become hard for me to continue at times simply because the are real people and families who were effected by this real tragedy. I get wrapped into books and this one made me really anxious. Overall, this is now one of my favorite books.
    • 5/5
      Superb nonfiction story of ... well, read the subtitle. Beautifully written and narrated.
    • 4/5
      This is a spectacular feat of journalism - Tobar tells the story in such a detailed and unobtrusive way that you forget that he wasn't trapped in the mine alongside the 33 miners. He's blessed of course with an incredible story - the survival of 33 men trapped deep inside a mine for more than two months, including a two week period where they were completely isolated from the surface. That they were located at all was a miracle - that they were then rescued without a single serious injury just incomprehensible. Tobar does a wonderful job of capturing the claustrophobia and fear - especially during the period where the miners don't even know if people are searching for them. There are a lot of characters - too many to easily keep up with at times and I definitely struggled to keep everyone's back-stories straight in my head - but the story is strong enough to overcome the occasional lack of clarity.
    • 3/5
      Eh, not all it was cracked up to be. I read this after it was recommended on NPRs book club recently. I expected more. This plodded along and lacked any of the compelling attributes of the original news story. Informative but ultimately flat.
    • 4/5
      Book on CD performed by Henry Leyva From the book jacket: When the San Jose Mine collapsed outside of Copiapo, Chile, in August 2010, it trapped thirty-three miners beneath thousands of feet of rock for sixty-nine days. The entire world watched what transpired above-ground during the grueling and protracted rescue, but the sage of the miners’ experiences below the Earth’s surface – and the lives that led them there – has never been heard, until now.My ReactionsWhat a gripping tale of survival, faith, team work and perseverance! I remember watching the events unfold on television, though I was not glued to the TV as many were. I really had no interest in reading this book, but picked it up because my F2F book club chose it for discussion. I’m really glad I read it. Shortly after the mine collapsed, the thirty-three men decided that their story was owned by all of them collectively, and that none would sell his story apart from the group as a whole. Victor Segovia, “a hard-drinking jumbo operator,” kept a diary while entombed, and this became a significant source for the book. Tobar was chosen to write their story and he was given complete access to the miners, their families, and several of the officials who were part of the rescue efforts. While the story is ALL of theirs, the book does focus somewhat on a handful of the leaders who emerged – including Maria Segovia, the sister of miner Dario, who became the “mayor” of the tent city just outside the mine property – Camp Esperanza (Camp Hope) – where the families waited for their men to be rescued. In addition to the harrowing tale of their experiences underground, waiting for a rescue that might or might not happen, the book also relates the difficulties many of the miners had coping with their instant fame, and the aftereffects of the trauma they suffered. Henry Leyva does an excellent job performing the audio book. His pacing is good, and his Spanish pronunciation is excellent. I was a little taken aback at the heavily accented English he used for the dialogue, but then I suppose other listeners would have been equally annoyed if he had NOT used the accent. It certainly made it easy to tell when there was dialogue rather than exposition. NOTE: A movie was made of their story; titled The 33, it stars Antonio Banderas. A paperback movie-tie-in edition of the book also carries this title, and has additional content not present in the original hardcover.
    • 3/5
      Hector Tobar did a great job writing this book. Despite this I couldn't help but feel disappointed in reading it. Tobar does a good job of conveying the true story, but the story is not a consistently compelling narrative. To begin with everyone knows how the story ends. The real drama of this story existed in real time when lives were on the line and no one knew the conclusion. Three dramatic events punctuate the book: the collapse, first contact, and the rescue. The didn't think the moments in between make an evenly interesting book. I think the condensed version published in the New Yorker was better. The book is only superior in one aspect, character development. The miner we get to know the most is Mario aka Perrito aka Super Mario. We all went high school with Mario, a hyperactive braggart that must be the center of attention, quick to anger, quick to forgive. Mario is at times interesting, but I'd hate to spend sixty-nine days in a mine with him.It is amazing that any of these men, let alone all of them survived. They survived and didn't go completely insane. These guys had to live in the filthy darkness with fungus growing all over them. I would recommend this book with the reservation that it drags in places.
    • 5/5
      Hearing Deep Down Dark (audio version) by Hector Tobar is amazing emotional experience. It runs through almost all emotions that man can experience. You are afraid with the miners, despondent, exhilarated, lighthearted, fearing, surprised, impressed, and inspired. This is the true story of the 33 Chilean miners who were trapped by a collapse of the San Jose Mine for 69 days. It would seem like a miracle if any of them survived but all 33 did.The author takes us from the morning of when the men from different towns in Chili to close the time that their account was written. This is a very dangerous occupation of course, why did they go down to the depths? It was also the highest paying job in the area. The miners work as deep as 2,000 feet underground. They only come up briefly for lunch and so they see darkness for most of the day. On this particular day, the mountain was making strange noises, the miners called it “weeping”. Then a sound like thunder moves through the mountain while they are below. Previously in 2007, a geologist met his death in the same mine. Measures were supposed to have been taken to make this very old mine safer. But that would have been expensive for the owners and the miners were gambling their lives for money for their families to survive, for their children to have an education, for food and shelter. On this day, the noises were different. Something ominous was about to happen.Hector Tomar tells us about the individual miners about them, their wives, children and lovers. By the end of this audio experience, you feel that you know each of them. You know about their family problems, their fears, their ambitions and their reactions to the collapse and to the experience wanted and unwanted fame. The names stick in your mind. The language add a depth of richness. When you learn the Spanish terms for the miners’ lingo, it often sounds like poetry so you want to play certain parts over and over again.I invite you to listen to the audio version of Deep Down Dark and I guarantee that you will never forget what these miners went through. This is an important document in the human experience of emotional trauma, triumph, PTSD, and extreme hunger and adjustment to everyday life. If you can only listen to one audio book, make it this one!I received this book from the publishers as a win from FirstReads and that had no effect on my thoughts or feelings in my review.
    • 3/5
      I think I expected more from this book. It was interesting and a strong retelling of the facts. It was very difficult to keep track of 33 miners, though the author made a valiant effort to differentiate the men. I still found it difficult to "connect" with so many individuals (even though the author focused on only a few out of necessity).