Let's get writing

Ways of Going Home by Alejandro Zambra was my first read of 2024. While it started centered around a young boy’s life in 1980s Chile, it eventually turned into his later years trying to hold onto what form of innocence or lack thereof he had as a child. It grapples with the way Chile was under control of General Pinochet and how people were separated by the party system of the time.

As a young boy, he found it exciting, dangerous, to join his friend on a quest to watch the comings and goings of a neighbor who was, for the most part, nice and quiet. But, he had a dark past that the boy later finds out about as he reconnects with his childhood friend many years later. 

This awakening that everyone in his town holds secrets, and he is still holding onto feelings from the past, compels him to write poetry, a novel, and discover the real thoughts and feelings of the people around him. He comes to understand that his perspective of the regime, the world around himself as a child, was shielded by his parents who had to make decisions that benefited the family. 

Alejandro’s writing style greatly shows the disparity between the younger writer and his adult self, displaying the differences in innocence and self-awareness. This was a story that I enjoyed reading on my subway commutes, and I found fascinating the historical retelling of Chile’s troubled past and the cultural details from pisco sours to street names. Ways of Going Home gives readers, including myself, a perspective on finding our own path [home] different from generations before us, with all the trials and successes and failures that accompany it.