A billionaire Holocaust survivor hires a writer to uncover the truth
of Salvador Allende's death, and they must confront their own dark
histories to find a path forward--for themselves and for our ravaged
planet.
An expansive, engrossing mystery for fans of Isabel Allende, Jeff
VanderMeer, and Bill McKibben, from the acclaimed author of Death and
the Maiden.
Ariel needed money, and Joseph Hortha had it. Bound by gratitude toward
the late Chilean president and a persistent need to know whether murder
or suicide ended his life during the 1973 coup, the two men embark on an
investigation that will take them from Washington DC and New York, to
Santiago and Valparaíso, and finally to London. They encounter an
unforgettable cast of characters: a wedding photographer who can predict
a couple's future; a policeman in pursuit of the serial killer targeting
refugees; a revolutionary caught trying to assassinate a dictator; and,
above all, the complex women who support them along the way, for their
own obscure reasons.
Before Ariel and Joseph can resolve a quest full of dangers and enigmas,
they must help each other come to terms with guilt and trauma from
personal catastrophes hidden deep in the past. What begins as an
intriguing literary caper unfolds into a propulsive, philosophical saga
about love, family, machismo, fascism, and exile that asks what we owe
the world, one another, and ourselves. By boldly mixing fiction and
reality, imagination and history, The Suicide Museum explores the
limits of the novelistic genre, expanding it in an unsuspected and
exceptional way.
