Safe Return Doubtful

translated from the Spanish by Robin Myers

A heroin addict seems to have run out of hope, and in accepting his circumstance journeys to an almost deserted Mexican village to die.
He rents a room in this seedy backwater and prepares one last fix, but is haunted by memories of his past that won’t let go.
He becomes stuck in limbo among the bums of El Zapotal and the ghosts of his past so that neither he, nor we as readers, can tell them apart.
It’s a ghost story of a sort, a horror story, and a fable considering damnation and deliverance. But its brilliance is in its language, translation, and style. I’ve read it compared to Rulfo’s Pedro Paramo, which I can see, and I’d add to that the prose of Bukowski, which several times it put me in mind if.
It’s another excellent find from Charco Press who continue to discover tremendous world literature in translation.

Here’s how it starts.. I came to El Zapotal to die once and for all. I emptied my pockets as soon as I set foot in the town, tossing the keys to the house I left behind in the city, my credit cards, anything with my name or photograph. All I’ve got left are three thousand pesos, twenty grams of opium, and a quarter-ounce of heroin, which had better be enough to kill me. If not, I’ll be too broke to even buy a pack of cigarettes, much less pay for a roof over my head or score some more lady, and then I’ll freeze and starve to death out there instead of making slow, sweet love to my skinny bride, just as I’ve planned. That should get me through for sure. But I’ve missed the mark before and I always wake up again. I must have some unfinished business to take care of.

My GoodReads score 5 / 5