Over Labor Day weekend, I was visiting friends in LA. They took me to the nice little Alias Books in Atwater Village, where I proceeded to scan the fiction section from A to about M (at which point we ran out of time and had to leave) looking for books from countries I hadn't read. I picked up two without knowing anything at all about them, including The Dream of My Return, which is to represent El Salvador.
It's a first-person narrative of a rather neurotic Salvadoran journalist living in Mexico City who is making plans to return to El Salvador as the civil war is on the verge of ending. Wild things that seem realistic and normal happen to him, he undergoes hypnotherapy, he overthinks everything. He's a cad, but relatable. I just liked him. And the book. It was just right. (It reminded me a bit of Bolaño, though I liked it better than the short fiction I've read by Bolaño (whose long fiction I adore). It made me want to go back to Mexico City!)
