Author(s): Roberto Bolano

General

Five well selected short stories by the author. What is captivating about these stories is that, reeking off his obsessions, his originality and rigor as a short-story writer are intact, but the stories are not similar in quality. Jim, the shortest and least successful, is a nostalgic goodbye to those American nomads who ended sadly in the Latin America they so wanted to save with their commitment or fascination with otherness. Like Jim, hypnotized by a tire-eater in Mexico City, the destroyed personalities in these stories are an alloy of naivete and roguishness. You feel sorry for them, but they also scare you.