What I’ve Been Reading This Week<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A book by a South American writer who, like I said, was first recommended to me by a college friend. Despite this, I didn’t know when era this writer belonged to. He’s dead, after all, but he’s also my parents’ age. So the novel feels, y’know, relatively within my lifetime. And reads so thrillingly! In fact, it says up front that it’s a horror story, but then the back jacket copy talks about mystery. So it seemed to the correct book to read in that in-between time of horror season and Noirvember. Horror and crime are cousins, anyway. I mean, I <\/em>knew that, but Ted “Theodore” C. Van Alst, Jr., has said it<\/a>, too. So you know it’s true. We’re talking, of course, about Amulet<\/em> by Roberto Bola\u00f1o.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amulet<\/em> by Roberto Bola\u00f1o: <\/strong>this is one of them slippery time novels, but not in a sci-fi sense. I think part of what kept me from Bola\u00f1o for a while is that I thought I’d have to learn, like, quantum theory. It’s akin to Slaughterhouse Five<\/em>, but closer to The Butterfly Lampshade<\/em> by Aimee Bender<\/a> or Still Alive<\/em> by LJ Pemberton<\/a>. Our narrator is Auxilio, the self-described “Mother of Mexican Poetry,” who happens to be a Uruguyan asylum-seeker. She’s technically in Mexico illegally, and makes money by acting as an assistant to some older poets by day while being a rad-sounding hang at the bars at night for the younger poets. Generations of poets are attracted to Auxilio’s orbit, because she’s that cool. These odd jobs eventually land her at the National Autonomous University of Mexico<\/a>. She’s there when the army invades, two weeks before the Tlatelolco Massacre<\/a>, which is a way way bloodier Kent State. Everyone flees or is arrested, but Auxilio happens to be in the bathroom. She holds out there for thirteen days. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The novel is her memories, unmoored from linear expression. Much like a novel we’ll be reading in December, this isn’t a tale of brave resistance and vanquished fascists. I heard there’s a new Hunger Games<\/em>, if you’re interested. No, Auxilio isn’t quite right after an ordeal where “having her extremities fall asleep” is the first and least of her problems. She’s not quite haunted, either. She’s resilient, maybe a little more confused about exact details of things, but still mother to the poets. Still a good hang. When you face down an invading army of your own countrymen, how’s life supposed to go on? How are you supposed to forgive or forget? Interesting book to read one year after Midway Blitz, one year after ICE agents kicked in my building’s gate to kidnap a contractor, threatening to take a few of my neighbors and me with them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n LINKS!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Something to listen to while you browse? Inperplex posted a new video. <\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"a](\"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/image-10-1024x768.png\")