A brilliant novel from "the herald of a new wave of Chilean
fiction" (Marcela Valdes, "The Nation")
Alejandro Zambra's "Ways of Going Home "begins with an earthquake,
seen through the eyes of an unnamed nine-year-old boy who lives in
an undistinguished middle-class housing development in a suburb of
Santiago, Chile. When the neighbors camp out overnight, the
protagonist gets his first glimpse of Claudia, an older girl who
asks him to spy on her uncle Raul.
In the second section, the protagonist is the writer of the story
begun in the first section. His father is a man of few words who
claims to be apolitical but who quietly sympathized--to what
degree, the author isn't sure--with the Pinochet regime. His
reflections on the progress of the novel and on his own life--which
is strikingly similar to the life of his novel's
protagonist--expose the raw suture of fiction and reality.
"Ways of Going Home" switches between author and character, past
and present, reflecting with melancholy and rage on the history of
a nation and on a generation born too late--the generation which,
as the author-narrator puts it, learned to read and write while
their parents became accomplices or victims. It is the most
personal novel to date from Zambra, the most important Chilean
author since Roberto Bolano.
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