Shorts cover

Shorts

by Alberto Fuguet

A genre-bending collection of tales from one of Latin America's most radically original mindsIn Shorts, Alberto Fuguet brilliantly chronicles the occasionally bizarre, unceasingly turbulent existence of the geographically and emotionally displaced.From the tale of a childless Chilean couple with an antiseptic life philosophy to an account of a desperate man who "disappears" himself in Texas, dreaming that someone actually wants to find him, Shorts opens our eyes to the reality of rich kids from poor countries swilling their cosmopolitans in New York, scared to death of their own homelands, and shows the influence of American pop culture on the hearts and minds of those who have never set foot in "Yankee Bohemia."Unsettling and enlightening, Shorts conveys the American phenomenon of self-invention at its most extreme, as the culturally confounded rage against deflated fantasies in the face of obstinate realities.

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Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?