“This early novel by Jorge Volpi shows the lyric, even mystical, side of a writer one might otherwise associate exclusively with social and political fiction. Ably translated by Olivia Maciel, Volpi’s portrayal of the life and death of Mexican avant-garde poet Jorge Cuesta (1903–1942) is equal parts poetry and alchemy. Cuesta’s madness, his self-castration and suicide, inspires and maddens the novel’s protagonist, and in doing so provides a new genealogy—very Mexican, yet also cosmopolitan, yet also beyond such false dichotomies—for the novelists of this generation.”