Between Parentheses Essays Articles And Speeches 1998-2003

One of the remarkable qualities of Bolaños short stories is that they seem to tell what Bolaño called the secret story the one well never know. The Return contains thirteen unforgettable tales bent on returning to haunt you most of them appearing in English for the first time here. Wideranging suggestive and daring a Bolaño story is just as likely to concern the unexpected fate of a beautiful exgirlfriend the history of a porn star or two embittered police detectives debating their favourite weapons his plots go anywhere and everywhere and they always surprise. Consider the title piece a young party animal collapses in a Parisian disco and dies on the dance floor just as his soul is departing his body it realizes strange doings are afoot and what follows next defies the imagination except Bolaños own of course.