The Son of Black Thursday

by Alejandro Jodorowsky, Megan McDowell (Translator)

From Alejandro Jodorowsky—legendary director of The Holy Mountain , spiritual guru behind Psychomagic and The Way of Tarot , and author of Where the Bird Sings Best —comes another autobiographical a mythopoetic portrait of the artist as a young man in the sociopolitical maelstrom of 1930s Chile.

In Where the Bird Sings Best —Alejandro Jodorowsky’s visionary autobiographical novel that NPR compared to One Hundred Years of Solitude and called “a genius’s surreal vision brought to life”—we followed Jodorowsky’s predecessors as they came to Chile, fleeing pogroms in Ukraine. Now, in The Son of Black Thursday , Jodorowsky himself takes the stage alongside the unforgettable cast of his early years as they confront the horrors of indentured servitude in American-backed copper mines and the brutal oppression of a corrupt government.

Alongside the young dreamer Alejandro, we follow his father, Jaime, who’s obsessed with assassinating the dictator whom he ends up serving; his mother, Sara Felicidad, a spiritually attuned giantess who moonlights as a shopkeeper-turned-revolutionary and sings instead of speaks; Rubi, the mystic heiress to the copper mines who conceives a magnificent sacrifice to foment a workers’ revolt; and the ghost of a wise rabbi who’s been passed down as mentor from one Jodorowsky generation to the next.

In its captivating blend of wonder, horror, humor, eros, and magic, The Son of Black Thursday is another mind-expanding opus from Jodorowsky that feels both cosmically true and and urgently needed for our time.

About the
Alejandro Jodorowsky was born to Ukrainian Jewish immigrants in Tocopilla, Chile, in 1929. Internationally renowned as a filmmaker for The Holy Mountain and El Topo and for his starring role in Jodorowsky’s Dune , Jodorowsky has also produced comics, plays, books on Psychomagic and Tarot, and two other novels published by Restless Where the Bird Sings Best and Albina and the Dog-Men .

About the
Megan McDowell is a Spanish-language literary translator from Kentucky. Her work includes books by Alejandro Zambra, Samanta Schweblin, Lina Meruane, Mariana Enríquez, Álvaro Bisama, Arturo Fontaine, and Juan Emar. Her translations have been published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Tin House, McSweeney's, Words Without Borders, Mandorla, and VICE , among others. Her translation of Zambra's novel Ways of Going Home won the 2013 PEN Award for Writing in Translation. She lives in Santiago, Chile.

Genres: Fiction, Magical Realism

257 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Also credited as Alexandro Jodorowsky

Better known for his surreal films El Topo and The Holy Mountain filmed in the early 1970s, Alejandro Jodorowsky is also an accomplished writer of graphic novels and a psychotherapist. He developed Psychomagic, a combination of psychotherapy and shamanic magic. His fans have included John Lennon and Marilyn Manson.

Reviews

[Gene Brunak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really rewarding on a personal level - between capturing a slice of Chilean history (giving me insight to my mother's country), and illustrating the cyclical nature of US capitalistic oppression and "influence" on the Americas...this story made things infinitely more palatable through Jodorowsky's use of unusual (his trademark) metaphors and images, and ultimately his particular wisdom. Way ahead of the curve in terms of politics of every kind (environmental, gender, race, etc.) - but in the farcical and fantastic way his films also demonstrate that life is a crazy thing...

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is as weird as youd expect from Jodorovsky. It contains passages that are beautiful and disgusting, and he explores the worst and best sides of humanity through the story of his family in Chile. The translation is excellent and reads smoothly, given the oddity of the events.

[Olivia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I give it 4 starts despite myself because its well written, and at some point i was hooked and couldn't stop reading. Unfortunately i also found myself cringing a bunch.
I read it with as much of an open mind as i could and thats why i really enjoyed it
It feels as if written by someone who has detached themselves from societal taboos, which good for u i guess, but not all of us are, and if by some chance u are reading this and wondering if you should read the book, i write below a bit of what i had a hard time with, as a trigger warning maybe?
The book contains:
- bestiality
- incest
- parents having sex in front of their child
- people getting pissed on
- some grafic violence
If you are able to get past this i really recomend it
Its strange, raw, animalistic, emotional, human and real but it feels like a fairy tale with some life lessons

Oh also informative on chilean history and politics lol

[Laurel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonder filled, strange and surreal tale of a hermit Rabbi's ghost who body-hops through time in search of wisdom and offers many odd semi-autobiographical scenes, passages, and resonating images, like a heart being licked clean of all its resentments. Jodorowsky's writing is compelling, timeless, picturesque as to be expected from the maker of the incredible film Holy Mountain. Here are a few worthy nuggets extracted from the novel: "We are really all Super-Jobless. We were created to fulfill a cosmic task, but we lost our memory. What was our mission? We live like parasites, sucking the marrow from the planet and doing it no good. Always in anguish, feeling ourselves to be unfinished....our main goal is waiting why not make it pleasant?" "In this world we are all full of illness, because society itself is sick...I've become a hunter of my defects and I am constantly stalking them" and if you look for it, "love is present, effect precedes the cause."

[Sophia · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not for me at all. I don't think this was due to the translation- the translator seems to have done a good job. I just did not get the story, there were weird, creepy sex scenes that felt unnecessary and overall, not an enjoyable reading experience. I kept with it because it fulfills two challenges for Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge, but that was the only reason why. Disappointing.
*Side note- the author (who I guess is also a famous filmmaker?) was involved in a rape controversy and given the content of this semi-autobiographical book I am not surprised.

[Michael Jay · Rating 5 out of 5]

"...to be drunk on the joy of shining..." is one of many amazing ideas out forth by this writer in this enchanting encapsulation of story ; it is as if the biography becomes magical realism and heals the writer as well as the reader. I am grateful to the translator McDowell and to Jodorowsky for the sharing of these stories that contextualize his life.

[Gema · Rating 2 out of 5]

No era una lectura para mí. Me quedo con los fragmentos más conectados con la historia de la influencia de las empresas británicas mineras en Chile y me sobra la imbricación de psicomagia, que convierte el relato en utilitarista. Para saciar curiosidades sobre la psicomagia me interesó más el abordaje directo de otros libros de Jodorowsky.

[Samuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A psychedelic and surreal read. Very much appreciated the anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism themes. Reads like stream of consciousness—best to just immerse yourself in the language, and enjoy the ride!

[Hattie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oof

[Lavita Lakmita · Rating 4 out of 5]

En su momento lo ame

[Descending Angel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chances are if you like his films you will like this book. There isn't really much like it, a wild ride.

[Recensioni in tre parole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sequenziale. Metaforico. Visionario.

[auiliuinti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uno de mis libros favoritos es "La Danza De La Realidad", tanto que a todas las personas importantes en mi vida les regalé (y seguiré regalando) una copia.
Una de estas personas decidió, en un acto de desapego budista, vender esa copia en un precio realmente módico. Obviamente este acto me hirió (aún recuerdo la dedicación especial que le escribiera en la solapa) más como dice Jodo, lo que no das, te lo quitas.

Esta introducción a la reseña de "El Niño Del Jueves Negro" viene ya que conseguí una copia realmente difícil de encontrar, la primera edición editada por Siruela en 1999 a un precio módico. La danza de la realidad puso a mi disposición este libro que a pesar de saber su existencia y posibilidad de comprarlo anteriormente, llegó a mi y por fin pude leerlo y así completar la tetralogía de la biografía Jodowskiana.

Mi parecer de esta obra es que es bastante buena, extrañaba leer la obra literaria llena de imaginación Jodo y no sus manuales de psicomagia, psicogenealogía, o de tarot (que aunque buenos e informativos, a mi parecer se asemejan mucho a lo que L. Ron Hubbard hiciera en sus inicios).

Recientemente se estrenó en Cannes la nueva cinta de Jodo, "La danza de la realidad" y al ver el trailer me encuentro con imágenes que no corresponden solamente a el libro del mismo título como yo pensaba, sino que hace referencia a "Donde mejor canta un pájaro" y sobre todo a "El niño del jueves negro".

[Flavin]

"Historia del autor y de sus padres, mezcla de fantasia realidad, continuaci

[Rita · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so beautiful! The plot is quite simple, the story of the author and his parents, but there's so much magic in that prose. Highly recomended.