Chilean Poet

After a chance meeting in a night club, aspiring poet Gonzalo reunites with his first love, Carla. And although their attraction hasn’t cooled, a lot has changed: among other things, Carla now has a six-year-old son, Vicente. Soon the three of them form a happy family—a blended family, though there is no such word in their language. In the end, ambition pulls the lovers in different directions, but little Vicente inherits his former stepfather’s love of poetry. When, at eighteen, Vicente meets Pru, an American journalist, he encourages her to write about Chilean poets—not famous dead ones, but living ones. Will this investigation bring Vicente and Gonzalo back together? “The Chilean Poet” is a novel about how we choose our families—and how sometimes we betray them. It answers the question of what it means to be a man in relationships: a partner, father, stepfather, teacher, lover, writer, and friend.