The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon Chapter 3 Summary

How It All Goes Down

The Search Begins

  • This chapter reads like David Grann's OkCupid profile.
  • Five foot nine. Forty years old. Terrible sense of direction. Doesn't like to camp. Takes the elevator instead of the stairs.
  • Swipe right, Shmoopers.
  • While researching a story related to Arthur Conan Doyle, Grann stumbles across a reference to Col. Fawcett, who inspired Doyle's The Lost World. (Not the lame Jurassic Park sequel.)
  • Grann learns that Fawcett disappeared—and that many explorers are still obsessed with finding him.
  • Grann becomes one of the obsessed, and he plans to go into the Amazon.
  • Specifically, Grann will need to go into the Xingu region, where Fawcett was last seen, and where James Lynch, from Chapter 2, was kidnapped.
  • Grann promises his wife to prepare himself first. He sets off for England to investigate.
  • If you can survive on English food for a week, you can survive anything.