Three friends turn to poetry, friendship, and fleeting romances to bear living in a country that has initiated a transition back to democracy, after nearly two decades of dictatorship. It’s the 90s in Santiago, Chile’s capital, and they live amongst the mirage of democracy and happiness. Three members of a dysfunctional family: a father who left, a single mom and her son trying to make ends meet. Three detectives work on a case like no other, attributing a provisional and practical meaning to death. The Rule of Nines is Paula Ilabaca’s first novel—it is an exhaustive story, meticulous in detail, relying on multiple narrators who reflect the bewildering violence and division that have built present-day Chile.
