Review: My Documents - Alejandro Zambra

The latest release from Fitzcarraldo Editions is a new collection of short fiction from Chilean author Alejandro Zambra. My Documents is a series of wry and wistful coming of age stories, set against the backdrop of Chile’s complicated path from dictatorship to democracy. For most of the characters, the progression towards adulthood is one of disillusionment, but Zambra’s humane prose means that the situations rarely appear hopeless: consolation can be found in unlikely places.

Zambra creates situations and places in a few short sentences, so the reader is immediately immersed into his characters' lives. Sometimes the details are simply sketched out, allowing the reader to fill in the blanks: one character is ‘stretched out on her bed, listening to some album that falls somewhere on the broad spectrum of alternative music (the latest from Beach House, for example)’. Similarly, the landmarks in their development are relatively universal: loss of faith in the church, politics, football. One character’s loss of innocence is related to the infamous incident in which Chilean goalkeeper Condor Rojas feigned injury during a World Cup qualifying match in Brazil, bringing shame on the country ('soon after that my father broke his right hand for the second time, and the doctor told him that he should never play football again'). Zambra also has a keen eye for idiosyncratic details which flesh out his characters, ensuring that they never feel like cyphers.

One of the most effective, and representative, stories is Family Life, which begins with Martin a man in his forties agreeing to house-sit for a middle class family whilst they are in Europe. He has lost his parents, is disconnected from his child, and doesn’t seem to have any means of support. As he settles into their home, he finds himself trying to adapt to their lifestyle: he switches to whisky rather than beer, and tries to drive their car. This fantasy is disrupted by Paz, a younger woman who he comes into contact with thanks to a lost pet.

Unlike the rather stuffy family he is house-sitting for, Paz is impulsive and wilful; whenever her behaviour surprises him, she explains that ‘I was born under democracy’. Martin finds himself caught between the established older generation, and the rising younger one. Without effective parental support or guidance, he lacks the tools to feel comfortable with either. His behaviour becomes increasingly chaotic, until eventually he runs away from the situation. Martin is typical of the men Zambra writes about: denied opportunity under dictatorship, and lacking the skills or drive to thrive in the new democracy, they drift through a series of unfulfilling jobs and broken relationships.

At times, there is a knowing, McSweeney-ish tone to Zambra’s writing, a fondness for authorial asides ('I think that the story can't end like that, with Camilo Sr crying for his dead son, his son who was practically a stranger to him. But that's how it ends'), but he is also capable of creating stories with a visceral emotional depth; Thank You, for example, is an authentic and resonant psychological account of a couple’s reaction to being robbed whilst on holiday.

He writes with great style, too, not least in I Smoked Very Well, a first person depiction of an author’s attempt to quit. As much as the nicotine, he misses the aesthetic of smoking: 'I was good at smoking; I was one of the best... I smoked naturally, fluidly, happily. With a great deal of elegance. With passion'. As his story progresses, he reveals the deeper psychological fears that accompany the change: 'I could smoke without writing, of course, but I couldn't write without smoking'. He hopes that giving up smoking will cure his migraines, but struggles to come to terms with the idea that we have to give up something that we like about ourselves in order to function more effectively as adults.

There have been some fine short story collections released in the past year or so, from Colin Barrett and Annaliese Mackintosh to Hilary Mantel and Donald Antrim. My Documents is up there with the best of them: cohesive without ever becoming stale, humane, melancholic and hopeful by turns. Zambra is able to examine the impact of political and generational changes on individual lives, whilst never losing touch of the small personal details. This is worlds apart from Fitzcarraldo’s previous fiction release, Mathias Enard’s epic Zone, but the quality is still high – an impressive achievement.