La Vida Doble

“[La Vida Doble is] a harrowing examination of political violence during the Pinochet period. . . . A complex, open-minded investigation into the mentality of those involved on both sides.”—David Gallagher, New York Review of Books

“A word about this fine translation. . . . In Spanish, Fontaine makes use of a host of verbal registers and levels of diction. One of the most poignant aspects of Irene-La Cubanita-Lorena is her exacting feel for the Chilean landscape, her knowledge of exotic trees, her sense memories of a particular beach, her native immersion in Santiago. Megan McDowell achieves the subtle shifts in this woman’s voice as she tries to order her account; she maintains tautness in an account that must never (but could easily) flag, and clarity in a realm of horror.”—Marguerite Feitlowitz, Los Angeles Review of Books

“A relentlessly harrowing book. . . . .Fontaine’s novel is . . . a scientific report on the extremes of our behaviour. Not monsters but men and women, like any one of us, did these things and will do them again.”—Alberto Manguel, The Guardian

“[A] masterpiece. . . . Lucid and moving. . . . A whirlwind of self-estrangement, ideologically virtuous obsessions, bold sexuality, unalloyed grief, bottomless invectives . . . and, above all, page-turning psychological suspense. . . . In great measure translator Megan McDowell relays La vida doble’s brilliance.”—World Literature Today

“La vida doble delves into moral dilemmas and betrayal. No one better represents contemporary Chilean narrative than Arturo Fontaine.”—Carlos Fuentes, “Babelia,” El País (Madrid)

“After the celebrated novels Oír su voz and Cuando éramos inmortales, La vida doble confirms Arturo Fontaine as a storyteller who is part of the most invigorating current of contemporary realism. He plays with confusion of genres (history and fiction) and with the Dantesque element of reality. Characters with several identities, able to posess but rarely to give themselves over. Or naive characters who thought they died as heroes for an ideal. All is laid bare by Lorena’s words, or Irene’s—her real name doesn’t matter, because reality is elusive—as she describes her life. Fontaine has brought these political conflicts to life, turning them into powerful moral delimmas about heroism, betrayal, and devotion to ideals in a world that has none.”—La Vanguardia (Barcelona)

“This novel deserves to endure. Based on actual events, it penetrates like a corckscrew into the depths of the human condition of every era. It shakes, astonishes, unsettles, reveals, and maintains a powerful suspense from beginning to end. La vida doble exceeds Chile and exceeds its time. The narrative flow sews together different moments, moving forward or backward, without losing cohesion. On the contrary, it seeks to—and does—surprise and illuminate. The language is rich and acquires an intense color from its marinade of Chilenismos of every social strata. The characters are realistic, endowed with a solid incarnation. There are periods of calm, of poetry, of intense eroticism, even a torrid sexuality. After reading La vida doble, one is left with the feeling of having undertaken a journey both tenebrous and enlightening. Told by a novelist who knew how to convert his abundant material into a score of fascinating sonority.”—Marcos Aguinis, La Nación (Buenos Aires, Argentina)


“Chilean author and poet Fontaine’s searing examination of the consequences suffered by those who conspired against the Pinochet regime (1974–90) raises timeless questions about the morality of torture.”—Publishers Weekly

“I don’t think I’ve seen such a complex psychological study of devotion and betrayal undertaken with such poetic beauty.”—Bait for Bookworms

“The first pages of La vida doble are so powerful, of such truly convulsive dramatic composition, that it seems almost impossible for the story to maintain the tension until the end. Nonetheless, the truth is that almost all the novel’s action scenes regain the electifying atmosphere of the beginning, making the reader live through extraordinary suspense and emotion. Likewise, the moral complexity of the protagonist’s experience is very well drawn. A novel that as a whole shows great ambition, a very serious documentary undertaking, and a great dexterity in structure and style. It should be read in one sitting, and one emerges from its pages quite shaken.”—Mario Vargas Llosa