{"product_id":"distant-star","title":"Distant Star","description":"The star of Roberto Bolaño's hair-raising novel \u003cem\u003eDistant Star\u003c\/em\u003e is Alberto Ruiz-Tagle, an air force pilot who exploits the 1973 coup to launch his own version of the New Chilean Poetry, a multimedia enterprise involving sky-writing, poetry, torture, and photo exhibitions.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e For our unnamed narrator, who first encounters this \"star\" in a college poetry workshop, Ruiz-Tagle becomes the silent hand behind every evil act in the darkness of Pinochet's regime. The narrator, unable to stop himself, tries to track Ruiz-Tagle down, and sees signs of his activity over and over again. A corrosive, mocking humor sparkles within Bolaño's darkest visions of Chile under Pinochet. In Bolaño's world there's a big graveyard and there's a big graveyard laugh. (He once described his novel \u003cem\u003eBy Night in Chile\u003c\/em\u003e as \"a tale of terror, a situation comedy, and a combination pastoral-gothic novel.\")\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Many Chilean authors have written about the \"bloody events of the early Pinochet years, the abductions and murders,\" Richard Eder commented in the \u003cem\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/em\u003e: \"None has done it in so dark and glittering a fashion as Roberto Bolaño.\"","brand":"New Directions Publishing Corporation","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48833671364813,"sku":"9780811215862","price":15.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0557\/1529\/9533\/files\/imageloader_33c92bd5-d52c-4524-a898-bf348bc28e23.jpg?v=1790892765","url":"https:\/\/booksatmidnight.com\/products\/distant-star","provider":"Books At Midnight","version":"1.0","type":"link"}