High-octane paranoia deranges a writer and fuels a dangerous plan to return home at the tail end of El Salvador’s long civil war.
Is the plan a dream or a nightmare?
Is he courageous, foolhardy, or just plain dumb?
Is the bubbling brew of horrors and threats actual or imagined?
After he seeks relief for liver pain through hypnosis (while drinking more than ever, despite the treatments), his few impulse-control mechanisms rapidly dissolve, and reality only rarely intrudes on his cogitations. Harebrained murder plots, half-mad arguments, hysterical rants: the narrative escalates at a maniacal pace, infused with Horacio Castellanos Moya’s uniquely outlandish and acerbic sense of humor.
Brilliant and devastating and incredibly beautiful.
—Powells.com
Humor amid the madness and evil. Don’t let the breezy, often funny and frequently irreverent tone fool you
—John Greenya, Washington Times
A welcome, eye-opening addition to this new literature of the Latin American nightmare.
—Anderson Tepper, Time Out New York
You can get out of breath reading Moya, who seems to have some occult command over the relationship between subject matter and the kinetics of the language chosen to present it. There are no longueurs in this book.
—Norman Rush, New York Review of Books
A slender tour-de-force: a rich, complex, beautifully crafted act of ventriloquism whose brevity belies its range.
—Tom Andes, The Rumpus
In this taut, mesmerizing story of the brain’s far-reaching functions, Moya once again proves to be a master storyteller.
—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
The Dream of My Return is a pleasurable, light-footed book, yet its final scene, which takes place in the airport as Erasmo debates whether to board the plane, has the tension of a thriller.
—Charles Finch, The New York Times Book Review
Acid humor, like a Buster Keaton movie or a time bomb.
—Roberto Bolaño
Hilarious and chilling.
—Sheila Glaser, The New York Times Book Review
Brilliantly funny and unsettling. Moya has turned anxiety into an art form and an act of rebellion, and redeemed paranoia as a positive indicator of rot.
—Natasha Wimmer, The Nation
Moya’s scabrous, forceful, and very funny style is addictive.
