This is my first trip into Bolaño; I wasn't really prepared for this, what happened to me upon reading this book, but it was a mixed bag: a bit of ADHD, a bit of yanking my chain, but mainly, this was some exciting reading from a very talented writer.

When Paul was gone, Anne and Rubén shut themselves in the bungalow and spent three days in a row making love. Anne's money soon ran out and Rubén went back to selling drugs outside The Frog. Anne left the bungalow and went to live at Ruben's house in a suburb from which you couldn't see the ocean. The house belonged to Rubéns grandmother, who lived there with her eldest son, Ruben's uncle, an unmarried fisherman, about forty years old. Things soon took a turn for the worse. Ruben's grandmother didn't like the way Anne walked around the house half-naked. One afternoon, when Anne was in the bathroom, Ruben's uncle came in and propositioned her. He offered her money. Anne, of course, refused the offer, but not firmly enough (she didn't want to offend him, she remembers) and the next day Ruben's uncle offered her money again in return for her favors. Without realizing what she was about to unleash, Anne told Rubén. That night Rubén took a knife from the kitchen and tried to kill his uncle. The shouting was loud enough to wake the whole neighborhood, Anne remembers, but strangely nobody seemed to hear. Luckily, Ruben's uncle, who was a stronger and more experienced fighter, soon disarmed him. But Rubén wasn't about to give in, and threw a vase at his uncle's head. As bad luck would have it, just at that moment his grandmother was coming out of her room, wearing a very bright red nightgown, the likes of which Anne had never seen. Ruben's uncle dodged the vase and it struck his grandmother on the chest. The uncle gave Rubén a beating, then took his mother to hospital. When they returned, the uncle and the grandmother marched straight into the room where Anne and Rubén were sleeping and gave them two hours to get out of the house. Rubén had bruises all over his body and could hardly move, but he was so scared of his uncle that before the two hours were up, they had packed all their gear into the car.

It's a very good book at times, and at others, e.g. when Bolaño endlessly name-drops authors and books, it gets tedious as hell. At that point I wish he'd had an editor to rein him in a lot.

Some sentences, though, are just great:

One day Anne's love for Tony ran out and she left Seattle.

A lot goes on in very little time:

One night, while they were making love, Bill suggested they have a child. Anne's reply was brief and calm, she simply said no, she was still too young, but inside she could feel herself starting to scream, or rather, she could feel, and see, the dividing line between not screaming and screaming. It was like opening your eyes in a cave bigger than the Earth, Anne remembers. It was around then that she had a relapse and the doctors decided to operate again.

In total: a very worthy read.