Ways of Going Home — Alejandro Zambra

A brilliant novel from Alejandro Zambra, "the herald of a new wave of Chilean fiction" (Marcela Valdes, "The Nation")

"Ways of Going Home" begins with an earthquake, seen through the eyes of an unnamed nine-year-old boy. He lives in an undistinguished middle-class housing development in Maipu, a town in the suburbs 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 novel 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 who, 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 Alejandro Zambra, the most important Chilean author since Roberto Bolano.