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My first exposure to Bolaño was the short story “Last evenings on earth”, which is about a father vacationing with his son. This story has a strange sense of urgency that puts you on the edge of your seat, and even if in the end not much happens, somehow it’s not anticlimactic.

I got this same feel in the first half of Savage Detectives and in multiple parts of 2666. It’s been many years, but I remember particularly enjoying the part about the boxing fighter.

I strongly suggest you start with his short stories to get a feel of his work. The book with the same title as the story I mentioned above is great.

Yes, the stories are quite bleak, and probably not for everyone, but for some reason they resonate strongly with me.

Here’s a favorite quote:

Metaphors are our way of losing ourselves in semblances or treading water in a sea of seeming.

A lot of his writing is very “meta” in the sense that it’s about literature itself. Somehow Bolaño manages to make this interesting even for people like me who would otherwise find such meta discussions incredibly boring :)

Just wanted to let you know that I bought "Last evenings on earth" and am going through it now.

I jumped to the eponymous story first since you talked about it, and I totally see the strange sense of urgency. I also liked that I felt transported back to the 70s, in Mexico. It seemed like something was brewing underneath throughout the entire country (I just watched Roma last night and saw that there as well).

I also noticed a pattern I've seen in his other works, one where two men, who are very different from each other and who are inexplicably tied together, are traveling together to a place that seems strangely hostile to them.

Thanks again for the recommendation!