The Past Pursues Us Like Detectives, Debt Collectors, Thieves - by Juan Pablo Villalobos (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The trip home from hell: everything that can go wrong, will go wrong, when the protagonist, who has emigrated, returns to Mexico.

JP, the protagonist, returns to his hometown in Mexico after many years abroad, where he has a peaceful life. He returns to help his siblings care for his parents, who are now elderly. What should have been a brief visit becomes the visit from hell and JP a murder suspect. A photo of a bullet circulates, and everyone seems determined to offer him pills of dubious origin: could they be melatonin, tranquilizers, amphetamines, poison?

Weaving outright hilarity with wry tenderness, Villalobos tells of the changes time has wrought on the family, friends and town the protagonist once knew.

Review Quotes

Praise for The Past Pursues Us Like Detectives, Debt Collectors, Thieves:

"What an achievement. What seems like a light narrative becomes a reflection on how arriving home is already a form of leaving." --El Periódico

Praise for Villalobos:

"An eccentric hybrid, combining pulpy crime fiction . . . with avant-garde archness. Villalobos's take is refreshingly exuberant." --Houman Barekat, The Guardian

"A postmodern thriller and intellectual satire that fizzes with verbal gusto and black humour." --Max Liu, The i

"A wild-eyed, motor-powered, hilarious blast about kidnapping, gangsters and political corruption." --Jane Graham, Big Issue

"So propulsive it's nearly impossible to stop reading . . . This is a hilarious novel, and it's brilliant and bittersweet, too, in surprising ways. Pitch-perfect from start to finish." --Kirkus, starred review

"Down the Rabbit Hole is a miniature high-speed experiment with perspective . . . a deliberate, wild attack on the conventions of literature." --Adam Thirlwell

About the Author

Juan Pablo Villalobos was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1973. He studied marketing and Spanish literature before working as a market researcher as well as writing travel stories and literary and film criticism. He has researched topics as diverse as the influence of the avant-garde on the work of César Aira and the flexibility of pipelines for electrical installations. His books include his Guardian First Book Award-shortlisted debut Down the Rabbit Hole, as well as Quesadillas, I'll Sell You a Dog, I Don't Expect Anyone to Believe Me and The Invasion of the Spirit People.

Daniel Hahn lives in the UK and translates from Portuguese, Spanish and French. His translations have won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award and been shortlisted for the Booker International Prize.