Loosely based on the author’s own family history and tied to the famous folktale about a Tejano-Mexicano resistance fighter named Traga-Balas who, pistol in hand, shoots it out with the Texas Rangers and forgoes his South Texas privilege to be a smuggler amongst the lower social socioeconomic classes. The discovery of a book that purports to tell the entire history of his family beginning with Cain and Abel is, I expect, what draws the publisher to use as a comp title "One Hundred Years of Solitude" which, according to the critic William Kennedy, chronicles the history of the Buendias from "not long after Genesis left off and carries through to the air age." But comparing this novel to Gabo and Cormac McCarthy is a significant overrreach by the marketing team. While quite good, "The Bullet Swallower" is unlikely to become, as Kennedy said, in reference to "Cien años," "the first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race."

Generally NOT a magical realism fan BUT this grabbed me right away . The combining of past with present tied together the idea of "sins of the father". A western, more in the line of Cormac McCarthy than John Jakes. The descriptive language made me feel the heat and feel the cold. Thanks to NetGalley for the digital ARC.

4 stars

I loved this book. It was so much more than what I was expecting. A full saga. I highly recommend.

Epic, saga, heritage, the story starts forever-ago but it also starts in the present. The past and the present are so intertwined that to try to describe it doesn’t do it justice. You just have to read it.