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Telenovela
Set in Santiago towards the end of Pinochet’s dictatorship, Telenovela explores the secret lives of a family swept up in this dark period of Chile’s history.
There is Lucho: bullied by fellow soldiers for his love of poetry, thwarted in his ambitions to become a writer, unhappy at work. He seems like a loving father. He seems plain loveable, in fact. And maybe he is. But as TELENOVELA unfolds, other things come to light about Lucho that are less easy to indulge – or forgive.
There is Ramona, Lucho’s wife: tormented by anxiety, overwhelmed by self-loathing and body image problems. As a drama student, Ramona once hoped to become a Telenovela star; she secretly daydreams that she might still get her big break. Guileless, gentle, Ramona seems like an innocent. But is she?
Then there is Pablo, their son: dreamy, gentle, eager to make friends, to form his own band and write some worthwhile songs. Desperate to be cool... And increasingly, just desperate.
Gonzalo C. Garcia makes us feel for these characters and want to understand them – but, as the novel unfolds, come to the frightening realisation of what it really means to have such understanding. And so it is that deeply human and deeply personal stories of mislaid ambition, failure and intergenerational trauma take on national – and universal significance.
There is Lucho: bullied by fellow soldiers for his love of poetry, thwarted in his ambitions to become a writer, unhappy at work. He seems like a loving father. He seems plain loveable, in fact. And maybe he is. But as TELENOVELA unfolds, other things come to light about Lucho that are less easy to indulge – or forgive.
There is Ramona, Lucho’s wife: tormented by anxiety, overwhelmed by self-loathing and body image problems. As a drama student, Ramona once hoped to become a Telenovela star; she secretly daydreams that she might still get her big break. Guileless, gentle, Ramona seems like an innocent. But is she?
Then there is Pablo, their son: dreamy, gentle, eager to make friends, to form his own band and write some worthwhile songs. Desperate to be cool... And increasingly, just desperate.
Gonzalo C. Garcia makes us feel for these characters and want to understand them – but, as the novel unfolds, come to the frightening realisation of what it really means to have such understanding. And so it is that deeply human and deeply personal stories of mislaid ambition, failure and intergenerational trauma take on national – and universal significance.
326 pages, Paperback
Published November 27, 2025
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December 23, 2025
Telenovela is the 2nd novel by Gonzalo C. Garcia, and is also the entry by Galley Beggar to the 2026 Queen Mary Small Press Fiction Prize.
The author's debut novel, We Are The End suffered from the rather puerile nature of the life and observations of its main character Tomás (and I emphasise this is a comment on the character).
This is, if not a more mature work per se, certainly a work about more mature and thoughful characters, indeed the rounded portrayal of its three protagonists is a key strength.
The title is taken from the TV form particular to South American that lies somewhere between a mini series and a more open-ended soap opera: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telenovela
And the novel is set in Chile in the lead up to the October 1988 plebiscite on the continuation of the Pinochet Presidency, one the regime was ultimately to lose. A timely novel given the current re-emergence of authoritarian regimes and indeed the results the weekend I read this book of the first round of the 2025 Chilean Presidential election, with the ultraconservative candidate expected to win the second round in a run-off with the Communist party candidate.
1988 referendum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_Ch...
Guardian article on the 2025 election: https://www.theguardian.com/world/202...
The novel, which begins in February 1987, switches in alternating chapters, between the narrative perspective of three characters, Lucho, his wife Ramona and their son Pablo.
Lucho’s late father Angel - “the hero, the leader, the man” - was a strong and active supporter of the Pinochet regime, taking over a regional newspaper on 1973 post the coup and suppressing dissident journalists. Lucho himself is a solider, bullied when he first enlisted due to his love of poetry (“Poor man’s Neruda turned to faggot poet”), and has now been posted to Santiago to manage inventory records.
But his commanding officer assigns him to a special task - tracking down a formerly exiled dissident poet who has reportedly returned to the country to support the “No” side in the plebiscite. This leads Lucho - whose twin heroes, the great poet Neruda and the 19th century military hero Arturo Prat, showcase both sides of his identity, back into the world of poetry from which he himself had been exiled, and the chapters narrated from his perspective include sections from his own poetry.
He can’t risk anyone else finding these notebooks now, not with his new job, not in this country. Can’t risk another hand leafing through the pages, most of them failures, incomplete and scattered in their phrasing, the syncopated impatience of youth. He’d thought of burning them. He’d even got close to the fire, close enough to singe off the numbered corners on one of the books. But he couldn’t do it.
After all, he’d written those poems to be found; he had even written his name below every single one. Sometimes, if he’d been particularly proud of a verse, he had loudly underlined his name to mark the page below it, hoping its imprint would prompt a clear direction for the next poem, some sign in the vastness of the white page.
The only notebook he has now is the one he carries with him in his pocket. It’s empty.
POETRY NOTES – BOOK OF RAMONA
Preparations: Travelling the Great Sea
The boat is not what we once had.
You talk of the dark faces in the wood,
patterned cuts,
sunny splinters,
the glare of its origin tree.
As advertised, the owner says,
you will touch the sea
if you want to.
from a longer extract: https://www.galleybeggar.co.uk/extrac...
Ramona, we learn, recently had a mental health breakdown, and although released from “the madhouse” (as she thinks of it) remains fragile. Years ago she tried, and failed, to break into telenovelas as an actress, and still retains strong ambitions, her favourite daydream to imagine herself as a now celebrated star being interviewed by a leading talk show host, and she is seduced, literally, by a fitness instructor who claims he can get her a role (via appearing in some teleshopping commercials).
Her chapters of the novel include scripts from a (rather simple) telenovela “Lo Que Tus Ojos No Ven” (“What Your Eyes Don’t See”).
Pablo, although ostensibly studying for university entrance, dreams only of becoming the guitarist in a band, wanting to both emulate and then surpass a (fictitious) band The Dissenters. He joins two high-school contemporaries, equally uninterested in education, as bass guitarist, and ends up caught in a love triangle with the lead singer/guitarist and drummer who are boy/girlfriend. And he is sucked into an underground music scene which is largely anti the regime, and everything his father stands for, but with little motivation other than musical fame and, very much second, his fling with the drummer.
His sections of the novel include sketched out music fragments (sheet music and guitar chord progressions) written specially for this book by the novelist Will Eaves. Here an audio version would have been helpful to the musically illiterate, in which company I'm included.
This is, as the above illustrates, a neatly constructed novel, the three main characters set out in a balanced way, with a focus on the compromises they make between their ideals and their ambitions.
But, and this is a personal not an objective take, for a book that takes the title of an addictive form of TV series, the characters and plot failed to grab my (admittedly somewhat distracted by a busy life) attention.
Galley Beggar
GALLEY BEGGAR PRESS is an independent publisher committed to publishing daring, innovative fiction and narrative non-fiction.
Founded in 2012, we are particularly keen to support writers of great literary talent writing outside the norm, who push the boundaries of form and language. Over the past eight years, our authors – from Selby Wynn Schwartz (After Sappho), Lucy Ellmann (Ducks, Newburyport), Preti Taneja (We that are young), to Eimear McBride (A Girl Is A Half-formed Thing), Alex Pheby (Lucia), and beyond – have gone on to be longlisted, shortlisted, and the winners of over twenty of the world’s most prestigious literary awards, including the Booker Prize, the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Wellcome Book Prize, the Goldsmiths Prize, the Desmond Elliott Prize, the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction, the Jan Michalski Prize, the Folio Prize, the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, and the Frank O’Connor Short Story Prize.
The author's debut novel, We Are The End suffered from the rather puerile nature of the life and observations of its main character Tomás (and I emphasise this is a comment on the character).
This is, if not a more mature work per se, certainly a work about more mature and thoughful characters, indeed the rounded portrayal of its three protagonists is a key strength.
The title is taken from the TV form particular to South American that lies somewhere between a mini series and a more open-ended soap opera: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telenovela
And the novel is set in Chile in the lead up to the October 1988 plebiscite on the continuation of the Pinochet Presidency, one the regime was ultimately to lose. A timely novel given the current re-emergence of authoritarian regimes and indeed the results the weekend I read this book of the first round of the 2025 Chilean Presidential election, with the ultraconservative candidate expected to win the second round in a run-off with the Communist party candidate.
1988 referendum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_Ch...
Guardian article on the 2025 election: https://www.theguardian.com/world/202...
The novel, which begins in February 1987, switches in alternating chapters, between the narrative perspective of three characters, Lucho, his wife Ramona and their son Pablo.
Lucho’s late father Angel - “the hero, the leader, the man” - was a strong and active supporter of the Pinochet regime, taking over a regional newspaper on 1973 post the coup and suppressing dissident journalists. Lucho himself is a solider, bullied when he first enlisted due to his love of poetry (“Poor man’s Neruda turned to faggot poet”), and has now been posted to Santiago to manage inventory records.
But his commanding officer assigns him to a special task - tracking down a formerly exiled dissident poet who has reportedly returned to the country to support the “No” side in the plebiscite. This leads Lucho - whose twin heroes, the great poet Neruda and the 19th century military hero Arturo Prat, showcase both sides of his identity, back into the world of poetry from which he himself had been exiled, and the chapters narrated from his perspective include sections from his own poetry.
He can’t risk anyone else finding these notebooks now, not with his new job, not in this country. Can’t risk another hand leafing through the pages, most of them failures, incomplete and scattered in their phrasing, the syncopated impatience of youth. He’d thought of burning them. He’d even got close to the fire, close enough to singe off the numbered corners on one of the books. But he couldn’t do it.
After all, he’d written those poems to be found; he had even written his name below every single one. Sometimes, if he’d been particularly proud of a verse, he had loudly underlined his name to mark the page below it, hoping its imprint would prompt a clear direction for the next poem, some sign in the vastness of the white page.
The only notebook he has now is the one he carries with him in his pocket. It’s empty.
POETRY NOTES – BOOK OF RAMONA
Preparations: Travelling the Great Sea
The boat is not what we once had.
You talk of the dark faces in the wood,
patterned cuts,
sunny splinters,
the glare of its origin tree.
As advertised, the owner says,
you will touch the sea
if you want to.
from a longer extract: https://www.galleybeggar.co.uk/extrac...
Ramona, we learn, recently had a mental health breakdown, and although released from “the madhouse” (as she thinks of it) remains fragile. Years ago she tried, and failed, to break into telenovelas as an actress, and still retains strong ambitions, her favourite daydream to imagine herself as a now celebrated star being interviewed by a leading talk show host, and she is seduced, literally, by a fitness instructor who claims he can get her a role (via appearing in some teleshopping commercials).
Her chapters of the novel include scripts from a (rather simple) telenovela “Lo Que Tus Ojos No Ven” (“What Your Eyes Don’t See”).
Pablo, although ostensibly studying for university entrance, dreams only of becoming the guitarist in a band, wanting to both emulate and then surpass a (fictitious) band The Dissenters. He joins two high-school contemporaries, equally uninterested in education, as bass guitarist, and ends up caught in a love triangle with the lead singer/guitarist and drummer who are boy/girlfriend. And he is sucked into an underground music scene which is largely anti the regime, and everything his father stands for, but with little motivation other than musical fame and, very much second, his fling with the drummer.
His sections of the novel include sketched out music fragments (sheet music and guitar chord progressions) written specially for this book by the novelist Will Eaves. Here an audio version would have been helpful to the musically illiterate, in which company I'm included.
This is, as the above illustrates, a neatly constructed novel, the three main characters set out in a balanced way, with a focus on the compromises they make between their ideals and their ambitions.
But, and this is a personal not an objective take, for a book that takes the title of an addictive form of TV series, the characters and plot failed to grab my (admittedly somewhat distracted by a busy life) attention.
Galley Beggar
GALLEY BEGGAR PRESS is an independent publisher committed to publishing daring, innovative fiction and narrative non-fiction.
Founded in 2012, we are particularly keen to support writers of great literary talent writing outside the norm, who push the boundaries of form and language. Over the past eight years, our authors – from Selby Wynn Schwartz (After Sappho), Lucy Ellmann (Ducks, Newburyport), Preti Taneja (We that are young), to Eimear McBride (A Girl Is A Half-formed Thing), Alex Pheby (Lucia), and beyond – have gone on to be longlisted, shortlisted, and the winners of over twenty of the world’s most prestigious literary awards, including the Booker Prize, the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Wellcome Book Prize, the Goldsmiths Prize, the Desmond Elliott Prize, the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction, the Jan Michalski Prize, the Folio Prize, the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, and the Frank O’Connor Short Story Prize.
January 15, 2026
Beautifully written, multi-narrator story, with lush use of poetry, script and music.
January 1, 2026
it's an interesting book the parallel storylines work .
December 10, 2025
Really there's no such thing as repetition. He's been thinking a lot about that are, how even the return to an identical 4/4 transition at the end of a song has to bear the weight of its past measures. Not that his relationship with La Dani was ever a song. More like the middie bit of a telenovela, the bit where not much happens, where we start to see each character live their own lives, deal with their own specific problems (without solving any)
The book is published by the Norfolk based small press – Galley Beggar Press who remarkably have won the Goldsmiths Prize twice in its eleven year history – with perhaps the two most distinctive and (in my view) strongest winners of the prize: Eimear McBride’s “A Girl Is A Half Formed Thing” (which also won the Women’s Prize, the Desmond Elliott Prize and the Folio Prize) and Lucy Ellman’s “Ducks, Newburyport” (which was Booker shortlisted and also won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize) with Preti Taneja’s “We That Are Young” a second Desmond Elliott Prize winner and Alex Pheby’s “Lucia” a Republic of Consciousness Prize winner.
The author is a Creative Writing Teacher at the brilliant Warwick University – but I have to say that his first novel “We Are The End” was one of Galley Beggar’s rare misfires for me, with a protagonist whose apathetic attitude and puerile observations detracted from the strong portrayal of the author’s birthplace Santiago.
And this for me was a much stronger novel. Set in Chile ahead of the 1988 plebiscite which eventually lead to the end of the Pinochet dictatorship (Thatcher’s involvement with securing the release of the internationally condemned criminal some 10 years later was a low point of her own awful regime) it features a family of three, all of whom want to be something they are not:
Lucho, son of a pro-Pinochet newspaper editor (whose character both as a political figure and a father grows darker and darker as the book possesses), and himself in the army where his poetic ambitions have earned him derision from his peers, but promotion from his superiors (firstly a transfer to Santiago to keep written pro-regime logistical records and then an assignment to track down a returning dissident poet).
Ramona, his wife, still recovering from a recent mental health breakdown, and still day-dreaming of her failed attempts may years ago to breakthrough as an actress in the titular Spanish language soap-operas; her head now turned by a philandering fitness instructor who claims to offer her a route to TV.
Pablo their son who while studying for university entrance is wanting to breakthrough as an underground-scene musician and changing schools at the capital falls in with a songwriter and drummer (themselves uneasy lovers).
Impressively the sections are all distinctive and contain brief artistic extracts: Lucho’s from his never published poems and his more recent attempts to capture his life in poetry; Ramona’s from the script of the very telenovala for which Romana failed to successfully audition – which almost acts as a short story within the novel; Pablo’s from his attempts to write musical scores and guitar chords (these produced by another Warwick based novelist – Will Eaves: whose brilliant Murmur won the Wellcome Prize and Republic of Consciousness Prize). And while if I am being honest I struggled to fully appreciate the poetry or even to understand the music that is very much a problem with my own artistic sensibilities rather than any comment on their very clever and striking use in the text.
And what also works effectively is that this artistic experimentation and endeavour both endears us to the characters and engenders a sense both in us and them of slight distraction to the tumultuous times that their country is going through; a sense of distraction extended by the complex relationships into which each found themselves drawn.
December 9, 2025
Telenovela represented my first experience of the writing of Gonzalo C Garcia, and while the book had some very strong writing, and some engaging aspects, there were times throughout the narrative where I struggled to enjoy reading it. The three separate points of view, alternating between Lucho, Pablo, and Ramona were cleverly crafted, each having a distinct feel to it, but there was a connectivity that was sometimes absent in the way in which these narrative voices were pieced together.
There were a few things which also made it difficult to fully engage with the book. Leaving aside the occasional use of Spanish, the use of written music was frustrating. I knew enough of how to read the music to get a sense of it, but not enough to stop me from wondering what the point of it was, especially frustrating for where the most important piece of music (from my perspective as a reader) was situated within the novel.
The use of the script for the telenovela within Ramona's narrative was an interesting narrative device, and for me, this one actually worked well, although at the same time it felt like a constant distraction, having to veer between Ramona's narrative, and the script of the telenovela, so that it almost felt as though we were reading a fragmented account of Ramona's story - although, perhaps this was the point, given Ramona's state of mind? It also said much that at times I felt far more engaged with the plot of the telenovela than I did with what was going on with Ramona.
Although the book told the story of a family at an unsettling time when a political schism was unfolding around them, it also predominantly spoke to loneliness, with each of the characters struggling to find place or meaning within their world at a time of change- both the world of the family in which they are a part of, and the wider political world in which they lived. The ultimate question, though, is did I enjoy reading it? The answer is yes, but only some of the time. It is one of those books I'm glad I read, but probably won't pick up again.
There were a few things which also made it difficult to fully engage with the book. Leaving aside the occasional use of Spanish, the use of written music was frustrating. I knew enough of how to read the music to get a sense of it, but not enough to stop me from wondering what the point of it was, especially frustrating for where the most important piece of music (from my perspective as a reader) was situated within the novel.
The use of the script for the telenovela within Ramona's narrative was an interesting narrative device, and for me, this one actually worked well, although at the same time it felt like a constant distraction, having to veer between Ramona's narrative, and the script of the telenovela, so that it almost felt as though we were reading a fragmented account of Ramona's story - although, perhaps this was the point, given Ramona's state of mind? It also said much that at times I felt far more engaged with the plot of the telenovela than I did with what was going on with Ramona.
Although the book told the story of a family at an unsettling time when a political schism was unfolding around them, it also predominantly spoke to loneliness, with each of the characters struggling to find place or meaning within their world at a time of change- both the world of the family in which they are a part of, and the wider political world in which they lived. The ultimate question, though, is did I enjoy reading it? The answer is yes, but only some of the time. It is one of those books I'm glad I read, but probably won't pick up again.
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