Book Review: Chronicle of a Death Foretold

And we’re back with another book review folks! I picked Chronicle of a Death Foretold up on a random day out with a BFF, pre-Covid , obviously. We wanted to check out a fairly new bookstore, Thank You Books in the Crestwood neighborhood of Birmingham. It’s a small local store with a wonderfully engaging staff so if you’re in the area, please give them some support. Anywho, back to the book review, it took me a while to get to it because I actually went back and re-read most of the book because I wanted to go over certain parts again. So, to begin, the premise: A man returns home 27 years after a murder took place in his home town. The entire town heard twin brothers proclaim their intention to murder one Santiago Nasar. Why? The brothers’ sister had named Nasar as her first lover after her husband returned her to her family on their wedding night. So, the question presented is, if the brothers announced their intent to the majority of the town, why didn’t anyone stop the murder?

Themes: Race, Class, Cultural Normals, Imposed Gender Standards, Solidarity Amongst Women.

Writing Style: Highly descriptive storytelling format from the perspective of the narrator. The story uses references that outline context and culture.

My thoughts: This was a quick and easy read but the amount of detail and context, the suspense build, and lack of suspense in the traditional sense, all lead it to feel so heavy with information. Marquez perfectly strings the reader along, walking that line between intrigue and frustration. You’d think, knowing the ultimate outcome, what other information could surprise you, but there are subtleties and nuance that will grab your attention and hold it. Like the narrator, you know the climax of the story, but also like the narrator, there are many questions left to be answered and your knowledge is bound by what he knows.

In addition to a good story, cultural and historical context in this story present some huge questions that will have you asking, just because something has always been, does it make it right? When our reliability on the acts of others turns into complacency on our part, what does that mean? And what is it about people that make us perceive them in certain ways? How do we determine who’s a ‘good’ person and who isn’t? In situations where the only precedent is generational norms, who’s right and who’s wrong? This read made me consider how we often frame antagonists in stories and who we decide is the villain of a story. This short read tackles so much in so little time, most of it you don’t even realize until you take a step back to analyze beneath the surface. So much so, that I’d suggest re-reading it at some point and seeing what you missed, I mean, it’s not like you don’t know what’s coming, right?

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