Norte — Edmundo Paz Soldan

This “impressive and multifaceted novel” explores the lives of an artist, a savant, and a serial killer as they cross the Mexico-US border (Times Literary Supplement, UK).

Three unconnected people travel north, each passing in isolation over one of the most troubled and controversial dividing lines in the world: the Mexico?US border. But in a melee of language and blood, their stories and the stories of those they meet -- of a young serial killer; a waitress and graphic novelist and her lover (and former professor); and an outsider artist in a mental institution -- gradually begin to coalesce.

Daring in both its protagonists and its structure, Edmundo Paz Soldán's Norte is a fast-paced, vivid, and disquieting blending of distinct voices. By turns shocking, violent, and revelatory, they lay bare the darkness of the line over which these souls -- like so many others -- have passed.