Monsieur Pain

“The greatest writer to have appeared in Latin America since the so-called ‘boom’ . . . I’m tempted to call Bolaño the love child of David Lynch and Jorge Luis Borges—he’s that visceral and erudite—but this wouldn’t do justice to his ambition.” —John Powers, NPR’s Fresh Air

In 1938 Paris, Monsieur Pierre Pain, a beleaguered mesmerist and a lonely bachelor, receives a telegram from his friend and unrequited love, Madame Reynaud: an acquaintance of hers lies in a hospital bed beset with a myst...