num_pages: 256
description: Begun in the 1980s and worked on until the authors death in 2003 Woes of the True Policeman is Roberto Bolaos last unfinished novel.The novel follows scar Amalfitanoan exiled Chilean university professor and widowerthrough the maze of his revolutionary past his relationship with his teenage daughter Rosa his passion for a former student and his retreat from scandal in Barcelona.Forced to leave Barcelona for Santa Teresa a Mexican city close to the U.S. border where women are being killed in unprecedented numbers Amalfitano soon begins an affair with Castillo a young forger of Larry Rivers paintings. Meanwhile Rosa Amalfitanos daughter engages in her own epistolary romance with a basketball player from Barcelona while still trying to cope with her mothers early death and her fathers secrets. After finding Castillo in bed with her father Rosa is forced to confront her own crisis. What follows is an intimate police investigation of Amalfitano that involves a series of dark twists culminating in a finale full of euphoria and heartbreak.Featuring characters and stories from his other books Woes of the True Policeman invites the reader more than ever into the world of Roberto Bolao. It is an exciting kaleidoscopic novel lyrical and intense yet darkly humorous. Exploring the roots of memory and the limits of art Woes of the True Policeman marks the culmination of one of the great careers of world literature.
language: English
title: Woes of the True Policeman
publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux