The Return

As Pankaj Mishra remarked in The Nation, one of the remarkable qualities of Bolano's short stories is that they can do the "work of a novel." The Return contains thirteen unforgettable stories bent on returning to haunt you. Wide-ranging, suggestive, and daring, a Bolano story might concern the unexpected fate of a beautiful ex-girlfriend or a dream of meeting Enrique Lihn: 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 Bolano's own).

Although a few have been serialized in The New Yorker and Playboy, most of the stories of The Return have never before appeared in English, and to Bolano's many readers will be like catnip to the cats.

Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Published: 07/29/2010
ISBN: 9780811217156
Pages: 208
Weight: 0.86lbs
Size: 8.32h x 5.82w x 0.85d

Review Citations: Publishers Weekly 05/03/2010 pg. 27
Library Journal 06/01/2010 pg. 83
Booklist 06/01/2010 pg. 32
New York Times Book Review 09/19/2010 pg. 16
New York Review of Books 10/13/2011 pg. 33