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Camanchaca: A Novel
Camanchaca: A Novel
Camanchaca: A Novel
Ebook129 pages1 hour

Camanchaca: A Novel

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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On a near-silent drive across a desert with his father, a teenage boy puzzles out the mysteries of his family and himself in this acclaimed novel. As a fifteen-year-old boy takes a long drive across Chile’s Atacama desert with his father in a smoke-colored Ford Ranger, the teen simultaneously traverses “the worn-out puzzle” of his broken family—his corrosive intimacy with his mother, the obtrusive cheer of his absentee father, his uncle’s unexplained death. A low fog called camanchaca pushes in from the sea, its moisture sustaining near-barren landscape. Sometimes, the silences are what bind us. In this “arresting and deeply affecting read” (Publishers Weekly), Zúñiga is “following in the footsteps of fellow Chilean Roberto Bolaño” (Minnesota Star-Tribune). “It’s precisely this coolly observant language, deepening with the story, that lets us register the buried despair.” —Library Journal “A smart, straightforward narrative that reveals the varied mood a shared experience can evoke.” —Kirkus Reviews “Camanchaca has one of the strongest novel openings I’ve read in years, a knockout vignette that disarms the reader with a few beats of unnecessarily specific detail, and then seamlessly shifts into fast and steady motion while glancing across a violent mystery all in just a quarter of a page.” —Electric Literature
LanguageEnglish
Release dateFeb 13, 2017
ISBN9781566894616
Camanchaca: A Novel

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I'm always on the lookout for books set in South America, which is the main reason why I picked up this 128-page novella. Once I started reading, I couldn't stop, but I'll warn you right now that Camanchaca isn't going to be to everyone's taste.Many of the chapters are only one page or even just one paragraph long, and that fit the story. It reminded me of night travels by car as a child when I would rest my head against the window and wait for the illumination of a street light, then be plunged into darkness only to wait for the next street light. The boy has similar flashes of insight as he and his father travel through the night.Some of those flashes of insight are quite powerful, and when I reached the end of this swiftly told tale, I almost wished it could go on. Camanchaca is different, and it's good.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A very quick read by a Chilean writer. This is more novella than novel, or a long short story, with a page for each "episode".A 20-year-old man narrates time spent with his mother, his grandfather, his father and his new family, his memories of childhood, his dying dog, and his greatest love/need--food. As his father alternately rejects and welcomes him, as his mother struggles with supporting him, he eats a month's worth of university food coupons in a week. And he acts more like a 15-year-old than a 20-year-old.The geographic details are interesting--I ended up on googlemaps to see the places mentioned.

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Camanchaca - Diego Zúñiga

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