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Book Summary

Reviewed byMatt Berman
Paolo lives with his unloving parents at the end of the world -- the last house, a hut really, in southern Chile, an isolated, storm-wracked place where the land gives way to the southern seas. A stranger, Angel Allegria, arrives one day and murders Paolo's parents, but is unable to kill the boy. On the run from the law for previous crimes, he takes up residence in the hut and, very gradually, he and Paolo come to care for each other.

Then into their harsh lives comes another stranger, Luis Secunda, an educated man looking to escape civilization. Paolo convinces Angel not to kill Luis, and so the three settle down for a while, and Luis begins to teach Paolo to read. But eventually they must head back to civilization to buy a few new farm animals, beginning a chain of events that leads to tragedy.

Is It Any Good?

4

This award-winning translation from the French has the kind of world-view that you don't see much in American children's literature: Life is hard, bleak, and mostly pointless, and the best we can do is soldier on. It's a melancholy world in which a child can love the man who killed his parents for no particular reason, and that love can redeem the murderer, who is executed anyway by an indifferent bureaucracy, leaving the boy alone in the world.

The book is beautifully written and seamlessly translated, and it has a horrifying fascination. It lyrically offers a cynical view that sees a world filled with misery, betrayal, and stupidity. But adolescents in their more dramatic moments can see things in the same way, and will find in this lethal prose-poem a truth that they think most literature hypocritically hides from them. Parents may want to suggest a less somber read to help wash this book down.

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