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Farrar, Straus and Giroux
January 2013
On Sale: January 8, 2013
160 pages
ISBN: 0374286647
EAN: 9780374286644
Kindle: B008PBYUNO
Hardcover / e-Book
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Fiction Family Life
Alejandro Zambraโs Ways of Going Home begins with an earthquake, seen through the eyes of an unnamed nine-year-old boy who lives in an undistinguished middleclass 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 Raรบl. 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 sympathizedโto what degree, the author isnโt sureโwith the Pinochet regime. His reflections on the progress of the novel and on his own lifeโwhich is strikingly similar to the life of his novelโs protagonistโexpose 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 lateโthe 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 Bolaรฑo.
 Media BuzzMorning Edition - June 4, 2013
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