The Suicide Museum

by Ariel Dorfman

In this “murder mystery memoir,” a Dutch billionaire and Holocaust survivor named Joseph Hortha hires writer “Ariel” to investigate Salvador Allende’s mysterious death in the 1973 coup in Chile, in the hopes of discovering whether Allende committed suicide or was murdered.

Dorfman takes us along a spectacular journey, from Washington, DC and New York City, to Santiago and Valparaíso, and finally to London. Along the way, we witness a midnight gravedigging scene, are tracked by stealthy stalkers, and interview sources of varying credibility to discover what transpired at La Moneda. Through this gripping investigation, Joseph and Ariel attempt to redeem themselves, as they are both plagued by guilt. While Joseph grapples with how he has made his fortune unwittingly destroying his beloved planet, Ariel is haunted by the fact that his absence at the coup led to the disappearance of his friend. What begins as a puzzling quest unwinds into a fabulous saga about our duties to the world, one another, and ourselves.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Politics, Literature, Novels, Contemporary

608 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 5, 2023

About the author

Vladimiro Ariel Dorfman is an Argentine-Chilean novelist, playwright, essayist, academic, and human rights activist. A citizen of the United States since 2004, he has been a professor of literature and Latin American Studies at Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina since 1985.

Reviews

[Stitching Ghost]

I finished it, I'm not sure why, maybe because I wanted to love it or maybe because I hoped that Dorfman would summon the magic of the first chapter back, neither of these things happened. The writing style was so dry it often felt like my presence as a reader was unwanted and it made it hard to hang on to the moments of brilliance that were definitely in there. I'm not sure how to rate this one because the story and the topics were interesting and important but it was written in such a ponderous and unengaging way that the reading experience really wasn't my cup of tea.

[jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

to relieve the pain of others, could that not be what justifies a birth we did not choose, gives meaning to the life that we stumble along as best we can, is that love not a consolation for the death that will come despite our best efforts to ignore its existence?

as he's done throughout a remarkable career spanning a half-century, author and human rights activist ariel dorfman continues to mine the past, confronting tyranny, state violence, political repression, imperialism, and exile. the suicide museum, dorfman's ambitious new "novel-memoir" and "chronicle of an apocalypse foretold," focuses on the author-narrator's own investigation into the coup that took the life of chilean president salvador allende (was it murder or suicide?) and, as the book progresses, becomes a meditation on anthropogenic climate change.

dorfman (and his fictional narrator self) served as cultural adviser to allende and was supposed to be at the presidential palace on that fateful september 11th in 1973. some fifty years later, that haunting, serendipitous absence continues to shape his life. the suicide museum is largely a historical mystery, with much of the action set in 1990, when the author-narrator accepts a proposition from an enigmatic billionaire to definitively determine what occurred during the chilean president's final moments at la moneda.

dorfman's reckoning with the past is also ultimately a reckoning with self — and the "vagaries of memory." as the author-narrator travels back to chile and uncovers long forgotten details, he must also encounter the specters of his pre-exile life in chile. in many ways, the suicide museum is the culmination or swan song of dorfman's creative life, shaped utterly by allende's death and pinochet's ensuing military dictatorship. dorfman began composing the suicide museum at the very start of 2020, but wrote nearly all of it during the pandemic:

what i did decide, early on, as the sickness caught up with the book and surrounded it as if i were a city under siege, was not to let it overwhelm the story i had to tell, not bring it in till now, till this epilogue forces me to acknowledge with pity and terror that every page of this book is permeated with an omnipresent virus, so that what was conceived initially as a defiant response to the death of allende and the disappeared of chile can now be understood as a hymn to the possible resurrection of all humanity, a struggle against the annihilation that is imminent for us all.

to unearth the past requires a certain rare courage, as does exhuming all of those deeply personal moments and prior relationships to transcend their indelible legacy. violence echoes, be it the death of a leader, the authoritarian's brutal repression and torture, or the rapacious annihilation of the living world. dorfman's latest seeks to dampen the din, serving as a "wake-up call of a novel, as [his] small, sometimes serious, sometimes playful, contribution." the suicide museum is alive with purpose and dorfman's engrossing new novel, as with his life's work overall, seeks to help forestall a future darkened by the repeated mistakes of the past.

what version of relentless time, the urgent soon or the far too late, will humanity choose?

[Stephanie (aka WW) · Rating 4 out of 5]

(4.25 stars) The fictional and real Ariel Dorfman was supposed to be with president Salvadore Allende in Chile the fateful day that a coup took his life. Ariel has suffered with guilt ever since and, when contacted by billionaire Joseph Hortha to determine once and for all how Allende died (did he commit suicide or was he killed?), he jumps at the chance to redeem himself. Hortha is dealing with his own guilt, having built his fortune in a way that has been detrimental to the environment. Hortha builds the titular “Suicide Museum” with a purpose to shock consumers into changing their consumption habits to meet the challenges of climate change. The death of Allende is to be the culminating feature of the Suicide Museum.

This is not an easy book to read. It is chock-full of details regarding Chile’s political upheavals, Allende’s death and environmental change. But Dorfman handles it well. I was able to appreciate the complex issues that he writes about and even found the book to be a page-turner at the end. The message that it sends is an important one for our times. Recommended.

[emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

'—Gustav Doré's engraving of Dante's foetid Seventh Circle of Hell. Self-murderers reincarnated as stunted thorn trees, endlessly growing withered leaves, endlessly being torn by the harpies nesting nearby with clawed feet, inflicting for eternity on the bodies of those doomed souls what they did to themselves. And more terrible images on the opposite wall. I drew closer: enormous bees working themselves to death, "parasitised," a caption explained, and an Australian redback male spider, being devoured as it copulates with its female counterpart. And a horde of lemmings surging over a cliff into the sea.

3.5* — might round it off to a 4* later. Started reading this, the proof copy, and then switched to the ‘final’ copy because the former had a different bird to the final bird — it’s as simple (and shallow) as that. Birds aside, the writing is rather brilliant, and I thoroughly enjoyed it; but I prefer the first half more than the other/latter. The writing sheds quite a bit of its verve and ‘lustre’ towards the end. Perhaps that is poetic in its own way considering the storyline and context. Full RTC later, perhaps.

‘Blood is extremely clean, comes from the gleaming heart and circulates gloriously. I mean that those animals of my childhood were not stuffed with garbage like the fish we caught that afternoon in the Pacific, I mean that what came spilling out of the yellowfin tuna was—it was me inside it. Me. That free inhabitant of the sea had swallowed a wide range of plastic products, indigestible, bloated layers of plastic, that were the sum and summary of my labours. Every sort of plastic that I had helped to create, that had made me fabulously rich.’

‘Nuclear power? Too much radioactive waste. Making engines more efficient? Mere patchwork. Fusion? A pipe dream.’

‘What matters is that in this room, for the first time, I introduce images of forests: trees die but they don’t kill themselves. We’d do well to imitate them. The loveliness of the Earth, the music of life illustrated by some of the photos of baobabs and giant redwoods you saw in my penthouse, but also wondrous coral reefs, translucent lakes, breathtaking expanses of desert rocks. Beauty itself demands that we overcome our worst instincts. Before leaving this room—you’re sent on your way with words from Osip Mandelstam. He desisted at the last moment from jumping from a window in one of Stalin’s jails and ended up dying in the bunk next to Tamara’s father in a labour camp in Siberia.’

‘—this house has exceptional acoustics, you know, untreated cedar. The culprit is a Great Spotted Woodpecker—its black-and-white plumage is crowned on the head with a small red cap. It’s opening cavities to hoard nuts and such for the winter, insects, dead worms, grubs, the larvae of wood-boring beetles. Waking me up just as I’m falling asleep, I’m always on edge waiting for that rat-tat, rat-tat-tat.’

‘You know what she’s up to now? Translating Don Quixote into sign language!’

[Stefano · Rating 3 out of 5]

Credo di non aver mai fatto più fatica a leggere un (bel) libro. Ne ho letto metà (più l'ultimo capitolo)! Una narrazione infinita, spiraliforme, in cui le stesse cose sono ripetute mille e mille volte, dallo stesso "protagonista" (lo stesso autore, un alter-ego di lui, un personaggio fittizio ... ???) e da mille altri con lui, di fronte a lui, accanto a lui ... La cosa incredibile è stato leggere l'ultimo capitolo ... è perfettamente uguale alla prima metà del libro ... !!! Mi sono detto: beh va bene così, adesso lo chiudo e amen.

Una sorte di ossessione personale e collettiva per Allende che un non cileno non riesce a penetrare, a comprendere. La cosa ancora più difficile con cui confrontarsi per me (non cileno) è il continuo parallelismo proposto da Dorfman tra ogni società, ogni storia nazionale, persino tra il riscaldamento globale e la vicenda Cilena. Forse questo è l'aspetto più difficile e fastidioso: Allende (prima, durante, dopo ...) come parabola descrittiva del mondo intero.
Beh ... onestamente ... forse anche no!

[Jessica Westhafer · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don’t think I’ve ever seen commas used more in a book in my life, so much so that I was constantly getting lost in the sentences. Periods exist for a reason. Just separate your damn thoughts like a regular human.

[Robert Wechsler · Rating 5 out of 5]

To describe Ariel Dorfman’s new novel of ideas is to make it seem like a different book. What makes it special is neither its themes nor its postmodernism, not its focus on Salvador Allende, not its first-person narration, not its way of going back and forth through time. For me, what makes it special includes its monologues (occasionally with the narrator’s promptings), equal to those in Rachel Cusk’s recent novels, but used completely differently; and its way of mixing and matching themes, so that they form something larger than, say, exile, difficult father-son relationships, different approaches to revolutionary activity, and the place of masculinity in history. The prose is excellent, as is the author’s control of complex structures (plot and ideas). Even the length didn’t bother me at all, and I am very critical of overlong novels. The only negative is the novel’s Epilogue.

[John Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a 13 year old I wandered into a matinee of the movie "Missing" which concerns the disappearance of a young American in Chile during the coup that ended in Allende's death and the military dictatorship of Pinochet.
Thus began a fascination with Allende (the world's 1st and only Marxist leader to come to power through a vote and not armed struggle) and Chile itself.
Eventually I even traveled to Chile and biked over 1000 miles through Patagonia.
In many ways The Suicide Museum is the book I have awaited ever since.
In some other ways it is a book that gets in its own way.
A novel and a "memoir" by a man who was in Allende's cabinet and clearly revered the manbut happened to not be with himwhen the coup ensued and the day ended with Allende dead.
Author Dorfman became a refugee and created a new life for himself and never released the question that haunted him since 9-11, 1973. Did Allende die fighting or did he kill himself to avoid capture and whatever ensued?
My main issue with The Suicide Museum is that it is neither a novel nor a memoir. It is a metaphysical tract that hinges on the concept of "choice" in Suicide. At what point does dangerous behavior become a suicidal choice?
In the thread bare plot of this book a guilt ridden mysterious billionaire serves as a practical motivator of the Author to "get to the truth of that day" but also to serve as a linkage to climate change and the collective Suicide of humanity in the face of unparalleled and uncontrolled climate impact.
While this is certainly a theme of the book the focus is specifically on the actions on the day of the coup. There is some traveling between Chile, the US and Europe but that is all windows dressing because nothing brings those places vividly to the page. All the action is cerebral. The location is rarely anywhere beyond LA Moneda.
Did I like the ideas being wrestled over endlessly in this book? Yes.
Did I like the writing style-- which could be described as stream of consciousness/slightly skewed recollections? No not at all.
But it doesn't matter what I think. Dorfman wrote this book for Borges. Garcia Marquez. As a boast to Vargas Llosa. As a thank you to Jackson Browne. For the mysterious billionaire if he ever actually existed.
And most importantly, for Allenda and for himself.

[Emma Santucci · Rating 4 out of 5]

rounded this up from 3.5 stars to 4 because i think it’s kind of a boy book (as are most historical fiction books written by men, not to make a sweeping generalization).

this was a little too long but it was still good, i just don’t know that i’d recommend it to anyone who wasn’t super into latin american history. i thought the plot / characters could have been a little more developed (especially the women?!!!??!), and the ideas about climate change shifted center? honestly i don’t know how to improve it maybe i should have rated it 3 stars after all.

[Lulu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Verbose to say the least. Tho accounts say Allende killed himself, it rings false. Loved the wife. Odd idea, suicide museum. Many conversations were compelling.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

El joven asesor cultural del gobierno de Salvador Allende, de visita en la casa de descanso del presidente de Chile, espera audiencia mientras curiosea los cuadros en la recepción. De pronto, observa un AK-47 expuesto en una vitrina con una inscripción en la culata: «A Salvador, de su compañero de armas, Fidel». Y entonces Ariel Dorfman escucha una voz conocida: «¿Te gustaría cogerlo?». El asesor titubea, agarra el arma y el miedo debe reflejarse en su mirada, porque entonces Allende exclama: «Esperemos que se quede aquí. Pero pronto lo sabremos, ¿verdad?».

Muy pronto. Apenas unos meses después, el 11 de septiembre de 1973, Salvador Allende muere con esa subametralladora en ristre defendiendo el palacio de la Moneda en Santiago frente a los golpistas comandados por el general Augusto Pinochet. Pero, ¿muere mientras dispara al enemigo o se suicida apuntando contra sí mismo? Acababa de nacer uno de los grandes enigmas de la historia reciente. Cincuenta años después, Dorfman, aquel joven asesor que tuvo en sus manos el arma que Fidel Castro regaló a Allende, el mismo que se salvó de milagro de la muerte el día del golpe de Estado al cambiar el turno con un amigo que sería torturado y ejecutado, publica una novela definitiva para sacar a la luz la verdad: 'Allende y el museo del suicidio: Una historia de amor y muerte'.

https://www.zendalibros.com/ariel-dor...

[BooksRgood · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a saga from someone who was there in Chile when Allende was overthrown and killed- by his own hand - or was it murder? This question is at the center of this doorstop of a book.

At times, felt more duty bound than compelled to finish this near 700 page novel/memoir in which the author is the main character. Glad I did finish. Powerful and feels good to know (?!?) more about Chilean history…sigh

Some passages:

"I wonder... have you ever wanted to write a novel about Allende?"
"Not really," I replied without wavering. "I'm much too close to the subject. If I respected him less, maybe. But that admiration would kill freedom, the ability to shape the story anywhere it took me. It would be a lazy book, full of myths and no transgressions. A novelist dealing with a real person from the past must be ready to betray that person, to lie in order to tell a deeper truth. I could never do that. It would be exploitative. Writers have to be ruthless."

“Workers of my fatherland: I have faith in Chile and it’s des-tiny. Other men will overcome this gray and bitter moment, where treason tries to impose itself. You must continue to know that, mucho más temprano que tarde, sooner rather than later, de nuevo abrirán las grandes alamedas por donde pase el hombre libre, para construir una sociedad mejor, once again the great avenues full of trees will open, through which a free man will pass to build a better society.”

Maybe I should understand the devastation of my boyhood home as a lesson: that I need to start anew, like a dazzled immigrant arriving in a totally alien land, that it was an act of supreme foolishness to search for the ideal Chile amid the hard concrete and cement of what no longer existed anywhere except in the lost corridors of one's nostalgia.
Maybe the sanctuary of my old house had one last service to render, remind me from the void into which it had been obliterated that I should not persist in this cult of the dead, that it was time to stop mourning and start living again.

Technology changes our bodies, but storytelling, ah, that changes our minds.

Life is a shipwreck but we must learn to sing in the lifeboats. Voltaire.

Yes, America had intervened in our aftairs, had abetted murderous regimes, had brought down democratic governments in Iran and Guatemala, but it had also created jazz and the blues, given the world Orson Welles and William Faulkner and Georgia O'Keeffe and Eleanor Roosevelt, and my almost-sister Deena Metzger and Hortha's Bill McKibben. Yes, it had persecuted so many of its best men and women, people like my dad, who had so much to contribute, yes, it had driven us away, but I could still taste the Rice Krispies, I could still-


It was love that had made Pachi Guijón stay with Allende's corpse. He could have left t there, could have let the military find it and make of the scene whatever they willed, but he decided to risk his own life to stand between those soldiers and that body, not allow them to despoil those remains. And Adrián Balmaceda had refused Allende's order to evacuate La Moneda, also out of love, also wanted to offer himself as a shield to his president, protect him from loneliness when the end came.
An end that would come for them, an end that would come for all of us, every living creature on this planet. Life, after all, was just a flicker, a quick, noisy interval between the cry at birth and the last gasp of death, and all that they, that we, had lived in the interval would be forgotten, would recede forever into the shadows.
But we are not alone on this journey. In that brief moment of light we can hurt one another or we can alleviate the suffering, in that interval or interlude or flicker, there is the chance to fight the darkness. Even if we know how it will vanish, ourselves, this world, eventually the Universe itself. To relieve the pain of others, could that not be what justifies a birth we did not choose, gives meaning to the life that we stumble along as best we can, is that love not a consolation for the death that will come despite our best efforts to ignore its existence?
To relieve the pain of a man who had become a brother of sorts, that is what I had chosen, the lesson I had learned from Allende and Pachi and Adrian, join them as one more minor link in a chain of compassion, the lesson Angelica has been teaching me since we first miraculously met.

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first impression of the novel was that the narrator (who didn't even realize was a lightly fictionalized version of the author until about 20 pages in) was kind of annoying. From a literary perspective I was annoyed at how often he would say something like "I didn't know it at the time, but..."—he does this like 10 times just in the first chapter, and keeps doing it right up until the end. From a character perspective, I found Ariel (the character) to be at times overly ingratiating and at other times too easily offended, and later in the novel their kept being these moments where would refer to his billionaire benefactor as his friend immediately before or after thinking about how he was going to manipulate him. Even in the final chapter, of which Hortha is the emotional core, I can't tell whether Ariel actually likes him.

Though for that matter, I can't tell if I actually like him. From the moment the character of Joseph Hortha is introduced, I could not help but picture Corey Stoll as Mike Prince in Billions. Like Hortha, Prince is presented as "the good billionaire," who wants to use his wealth and power to improve the world. Like Hortha, he has grand plans for how to do that. However, Prince (and this is a spoiler for the last two seasons of Billions but I don't think it will make it less enjoyable and you should watch it, it's a great show) is eventually revealed to be a megalomaniac whose high-minded ideals vanish in the face of his own ambition. And like, yeah. That's who that character would be in real life, because I fundamentally believe it is impossible to be a good person and a billionaire.

But Joseph Hortha isn't in real life. And the portrait painted of him in the book suggests that, for all his flaws, his ideals are real. His interrogation of the role of capitalism and his own accumulation of wealth in the slow destruction of the human habitat is...lacking, but his heart does seem to be in the right place. And he has gone through some shit, and it's hard not feel for him in that last chapter.

The YouTuber Steve Shives has an excellent series of video essays I like to call The Cardassian Trilogy, each one of which focusses on one of the three main Cardassian characters in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, exploring how we relate to fictional characters who in relief we would never have anything to do with. In his essay on Garak, Shives says, "The fact that Garak is a fictional character is the very thing that allows us to forgive him, to offer him a second chance, to appreciate the conflicts and ambiguities that define him, to enjoy his considerable wit and charm while knowing full well what he’s capable of. We can get close to Garak, because he can’t hurt us. He’s just like the rest of Star Trek: a fantasy. He lives in our imagination – the only place a person like him can ever really be redeemed." Hortha, "the good billionaire," is good only because Dorfman wrote him that way. I just don't know how useful it is to buy into that, especially right now.

But setting aside Hortha's character, he's also serving as a vehicle for one of the two big themes of the novel, our impending doom due to climate change. Keeping in mind that this novel is set largely in the 90's. Fun times! And what's the other major theme? What to do when your country is taken over by fascists! So, a depressingly relevant book, it turns out.

And ultimately, though I still occasionally would find myself getting annoyed at Ariel, as the novel progresses and we learn more about him, see Chile through his eyes, the pain he feels coming back and the pain he feels when he ultimately decides to leave, I did end up really connecting with him as a character (and, I suppose, as an author). And he does present the death of Allende as a compelling mystery.

So, all my frustrations and hedges aside, I think there's a lot to like about this novel, and its themes will (or at least they should) resonate deeply.

[Emma Macc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nobody is infallible. Both Ariel and Hortha believe in their singularity, as an artist deserving of recognition for their part in supporting those exiled and persecuted by the Pinochet government and as a potential savior of the world, respectively. Yet, both come to find that they are not the gods they purport to be. Hortha cannot fix the world; he is not perfectly nonviolent, as he realizes when he faces the difficulty of protecting his mother during her final days. Ariel cannot find a happy life in the country that exiled him, despite his instance that Chilean culture is ingrained in his being. By the end of the book, both of our heroes face reality. Hortha stops his endeavors with the Suicide Museum and Ariel decides to leave Chile.

Yet, both continue pursuing the causes that have given their lives purpose. For Hortha, we suppose that he continues to dedicate his life to climate change reform and activism, and, for Ariel, we see that he continues to bring attention to the atrocities of the Pinochet era through his art. Neither do these things alone and, by the end of the book, they have accepted the reality that they may need and want help. The Suicide Museum teaches us that we must recognize our normality and mundanity in order to create real change. The world will not be saved by an ego. Revolution requires the masses, requires normal people to engage with a cause on a personal level. Hortha, nor Dorfman, can steer our society away from climate destruction. As Ariel feels most connected to Allende and his legacy when in the throngs of the masses, change is powered by the populous. When we fail to recognize the power of every single person, we reject the inherent truth that revolution is the result of assembly and unity.

Like Allende, revolutions may have their leaders, but the ideals of these movements outlive any singular person. If Allende killed himself, some fear the Chilean revolutionaries will lose their will to fight. Yet, their desire for a socialist ideal is not motivated by Allende alone. Allende is but a person. Whether he was right in the way he chose to die has nothing to do with the potency or importance of the Chilean revolutionary ideals. By the end of The Suicide Museum, Hortha recognizes his humanity and rejects his plans to save the world through a suicide museum. He comes to see the museum as a prideful project and instead turns to methods of covert change. If we depend too heavily on an idealized figure, we risk the destruction of a movement over that person's fallibility. No person is perfect or right or unspoiled by personal motivation. We must reject our idols. We should take from them what we can, as their guidance and wisdom can lead us down the right path, but no person should become so large as to carry a movement on their back. That dependence is not fair to the person, nor the movement.

The Suicide Museum also teaches us that truth is relative, or maybe it just does not matter, and we must leverage the truth as a mechanism of hope. As Ariel gave Hortha hope when he chose a narrative in which Allende rejected suicide and died fighting, humanity must elect a narrative of hope. At the end of the day, we must mobilize as citizens of the world if we hope to meaningfully combat the climate crisis. Action will take all people recognizing that they have played a part in the destruction of the world, as Hortha acknowledges his responsibility for plastic waste, and all people understanding that fixing our mistakes must be a united effort.

The potential for revolution lives among us, dormant and asleep, but it is contained in every person. Yet, humanity is failed by its egotistical nature and idolizing tendency. Anyone can change the world, but we must band together if we want that change to be lasting.

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

I immediately fell in love with this book, even before starting I knew I was going to like it. The synopsis had everything I love in a book, some historical fiction, autofiction, postmodernism, mystery, intrigue, takes place across years and continents, and hope. A book full of so many tragedies and so full of hope. So much for me to love. And so as the book says “I charged ahead, full blast anyway, let myself be enchanted by him, bewitched one might say.”

Even though this is fiction and clearly stated in the beginning that this is fiction I was still questioning what was real. The story is so personal and intimate and based on real events that I couldn’t help but feel this was a real story. The language is beautiful. The characters are just as beautiful, heartbreaking, and lovable. The way the story connects so many places, so many people across nearly a century is so incredible. From Nazi occupied Europe, to revolutions in South America to contemporary America. An extraordinary book.

“You must continue to know that, sooner rather than later, the great avenues full of trees will open, through which a free man will pass to build a better society.” -Allende

“A bright future awaited mankind. Progress was the core of our identity as a species, our singular destiny.”

“He did believe in humanity, that we were as eternal as the Universe.”

“Humanity is as endless as time, even if we, individually, are not.”

“Even so, I could not stop being dazzled by that country and the language in which I expressed myself—the language in which I now write this memoir—I could not help New York enveloping me with its charm and bustle and sidewalks, all those people from different cultures rubbing against each other, mingling, coupling in migrant love, an enchantment still persevering decades afterward, even now, here, in front of the massive, spy-filled fortress of the U.S. embassy that I had once thrown stones at. Yes, America had intervened in our affairs, had abetted murderous regimes, had brought down democratic governments in Iran and Guatemala, but it had also created jazz and the blues, given the world Orson Welles and William Faulkner and Georgia O’Keeffe and Eleanor Roosevelt, and my almost-sister Deena Metzger and Hortha’s Bill McKibben. Yes, it had persecuted so many of its best men and women, people like my dad, who had so much to contribute, yes, it had driven us away, but I could still taste the Rice Krispies.”

[Parenthetical Grin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would give this book 4 stars based on the obvious labor of love that it is. I gave it 3 only because there are aspects of it that grated. First, it takes as its main premise the importance of the question of whether Salvador Allende committed suicide or was murdered. That there is historical debate over this question--and indeed there is--always bothered me because a) a "suicide" committed in the middle of a coup d'etat has to be considered just another form of murder anyway; and b) why does it matter, when the end result is the same? It's a very long journey for the novel to take, based on this premise, made longer still by what happens to the premise at the end of the book. Second, there is a main character who is a billionaire who wants to save humanity and the natural world. I found this character irritating, not sympathetic at all, and deeply unsatisfying; it's probably because I long for billionaire-free zones for my imagination, since the real world these days is being tormented ceaselessly by billionaires. Third, the characters achieve insights at the end that I think should have been far more obvious all along, had it not been for their own egos. On the positive side, there is a lot of beautiful writing here, and Dorfman does a great job with the question of memory, especially in situations of massive political trauma. It's a love letter to Salvador Allende (and to his many supporters), and for that, I am deeply appreciative.

Interested readers should read Francisco Letelier's review of this novel (Markaz Review) because he captures beautifully what is indeed beautiful about this novel, flaws aside, and its importance for Chileans, both in country and throughout the Chilean diaspora.

[Aditya Adhikari · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hadn’t quite read anything like this blend of fiction, history, political reflection, and memoir before (though there were similarities to Spanish-language novelists like Javier Cercas and Juan Gabriel Vasquez). Dorfman’s project here is to recapitulate and trace the reverberations through time of the central event of his life: Allende’s election as president of Chile in 1970 and Pinochet’s coup and Allende’s death three years later. Dorfman writes well and movingly of the impact of the coup on a wide cast of characters, his own exile, and the compromises and betrayals involved in the restoration of Chile’s democracy in 1990. But his central concern it seems to me is to explore the continued relevance of Allende’s legacy and revive its inspirational value for current and future generations. To do this, Dorfman adopts an ingenious narrative artifice: he has a billionaire admirer of Allende, Hortha, recruit the narrator (the author’s namesake) to investigate whether Allende was murdered by Pinochet’s troops when his palace was stormed in 1973 or whether he committed suicide before they could get to him. The investigation and the conversations between Hortha and the narrator allow him to shed light on a wide range of questions. The novel is not flawless: it is sometimes sentimental, melodramatic, and didactic. The structure is loose, the narrative artifice isn’t always convincing, and it’s probably too long. Overall, though, the book offers a satisfying summation of Dorfman’s lifelong literary and political project.

[Rick Elinson · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is a problem with historical fiction. People are often remembered more from novels that they appear in than their actual lives lived. Dorfman further compounds this problem by writing himself as the main character in this novel. His wife, his children, his exile from Chile, his attempts to return to Chile, and his writing and staging of his famous play "Death and the Maiden" are all part of this novel. How is anyone supposed to separate fact from invented fiction? Is this how Dorfman wants to be remembered rather than how he writes in his memoirs? Who except Dorfman and perhaps a few fanatic fans will be able to distinguish the actual Dorfman from the fictional Dorfman?

Beyond this, the main theme revolves around a fictional character who wants to do something grandiose to save the planet from environmental destruction. It also revolves around the question of whether Salvatore Allende was killed by Pinochet's forces or whether he committed suicide. The book is useful for bringing Allende and his ideas forward again, but a much more meaningful novel could now be written with Trump's accession to power. How do the events in Chile leading to Allende's election victory and the brutal repression of Pinochet that followed resonate with what is looming for the future of the United States. Dorfman cannot be criticized for writing this book when he did, but think how much more impactful a book about truth and facts could be written today.

[Gabrielle Jarrett · Rating 2 out of 5]

Who gets to be in the Suicide Museum? Is the Earth pointing that direction? Did Salvador Allende, leader of Chile, die by murder by the revolutionaries or his own hand? These are the two main themes of Dorfman's book. Dorfman is clearly a well accepted literary writer. Suicide Museum seems to be auto fiction.
I had two major complaints, which only increased during my reading. First, I had a sense of being jerked around mentally and emotionally. The pattern of promises, then disappointments was consistent throughout my reading. Like a man who refuses Viagara. My second complaint is the book is way too long! I love long books and actually finished it. As each one hundred pages passed, I created the promise that something was sure to happen soon to make this slog worth my time. No cigar. At some point, I wasn't ready to give up my page investment only to abandon the novel. I regret that decision, because each of the next hundred pages lowered my experience by yet another star.
By page 650, I realized the story was okay, but the narrator's constant commenting on the characters is intrusive. Also his constant elaboration of his own thoughts, processes, and wordings is annoyingly narcissistic. For me, the narrator was unlikable, and therefore uninteresting. The novel reeks of ambiguity and perhapses...

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Given the copy (referring to the novel as an “engrossing mystery”) I had a different idea, I guess, about what this story might be like.
This is a really interesting book that is preoccupied with some pretty big philosophical & existential questions, but is ultimately less a mysterious adventure than a circuitously thoughtful novel.
I genuinely learned a lot from this book (I had essentially no knowledge of the factual historical elements of this story: namely the political coup in Chile and the controversial death of Salvador Allende) and it made me think a lot about things I’d never thought about — political exile and deracination, the perpetual struggle between revolution and peace, the meaning of dignity, our rapidly deteriorating climate, what it means as a person to belong to a place or to a people, what constitutes genuine bravery; and the implications of humans’ abuse and subjugation, not only of one another, but of the planet itself.
The Suicide Museum explores a lot of ideas, but maybe too many. It’s hard to rate because this is a book that seemingly would not interest me at all and yet kept me locked in for the nearly 700 page duration. Clearly, something worked. Dorfman is a very engaging writer and thinker and made this book, about such specific place and events, feel universally significant.

[John Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very difficult book to review. The cover of this novel says it “explores the limits of the novelistic genre” and that is definitely true. The plot here is slow and meandering, and there were times, especially in the second half of the book, where I nearly gave up. That being said, there is so much to like about the work, so many nuggets of brilliance tucked away in it’s pages, but it is also a very challenging read. I was buoyed by my inherent interest in Allende and the themes of the work, but I can see how many people wouldn’t enjoy The Suicide Museum. In fact, had I not recently contemplated putting down another novel (So Big) only to persevere and love it at the end, I probably would have put this back on the shelf for good. And it does end very well, though I think more satisfaction comes from the panoramic view of the author and Chile you feel you have when reflecting on the novel as a whole. Good endings do that. Dorfman is incredibly exposed in this book, it is perhaps the most personal novel I have ever read. In addition, Joseph Hortha is one of fiction’s (history’s ??) most memorable characters I have yet encountered. I am very glad I stuck it out.

[Izzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The suicide museum by Ariel Dorfman
Written as a novel: did Salvador Allende kill himself or was he killed?
“The past is always up for grabs, that we are the ones who decide what we glean from it in order to survive…”
Dorfman writes that the curve of history continues to bend towards justice and dignity and struggle…

Joseph Hortha, billionaire, alumnus of Mauthausen’s stairs of death , wants to know how Allende died during the coup of September 11, 1973..


(only about half of the ~200,00 sent to Mauthausen died from gas, overwork or starvation). The camp was in upper Austria (1938-45).
Joseph has created a suicide museum.
Ariel writes about a murder at the Argentine embassy amongst the Chilean refugees seeking asylum because of the 1973 coup.
The novelist uses the historical facts about the coup aftermath that he has gathered to help him write better historical fiction about it.
Pudor: Modesty, caution, shame, shyness; an unspoken rule of civilized behavior
Ariel’s wife exclaims: el mundo es una mierda but not all shit smells the same!
I

[Jon Brock · Rating 3 out of 5]

DNF - Read to p.396 of 676.

I was intrigued by the subject matter of this novel: the Chilean coup in 1973 that overthrew Salvador Allende and installed Pinochet as the country's dictator for 17 years. But there is no real story here. The author, as the fictionalized version of himself, mostly waxes poetic and meditates on endless questions about whether or not Allende killed himself or was murdered, and why?

I've always struggled with giving up on finishing books because I feel like I owe it to both the author and myself to see it through. But after googling the pros and cons of not finishing a book, I have accepted that to keep reading a book that I'm not enjoying would likely turn me off from reading entirely, at least for a while. I don't want that to happen, so I am calling it quits on this one.

Furthermore, other reviews for this novel have indicated that the second half isn't as good as the first, so I am ending my time with this novel at the right moment.

That being said, I did find the flow and writing to be well done; it was very quick and easy to read.

[Charles Cohen · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's at least 3 different books in one. Dorfman's return to Chile after exile. His investigation of Allende's death. His relationship with the mysterious Hortha, and Hortha's own quixotic mission to create a "Suicide Museum" to...warn the world about climate change?? Dorfman's language is simple, conversational. But it's also thick and weighty. The fascination/fixation on these charismatic leaders - Che, Allende, Pinochet, Castro, Franco, Hitler - they're not all the same, and it's unfair to put them all in the same list as Hitler. But it speaks to my biggest hurdle in relishing this book, which is the obsession with Allende and what he meant to Chile. Maybe I'm too suspicious/cynical about humanity and power, but I can't imagine myself falling for a leader like this, so I couldn't (and can't) understand how it happened, how it keeps happening. Placing leaders on pedestals like this is so dangerous, and it never ends well. You'd think that socialists and their devotion to the collective, would be most suspicious, but it's almost the opposite.

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I was reading this book, I hardly thought that I would give it 5 stars here because then, and a bit still now, I thought that Dorfman could certainly have used a judicious eye (aka a stern editor, whom I seem to find constantly, fortunately) to hone some of the repetitive elements in the text. But by the end, I understood that this is a magnificent monument, not just about the import of Salvador Allende for the Chilean people, but also about the dangers that face us on our planet, as we humans continue to destroy the vessel on which we voyage through the tiny corner of the cosmos that is our particular system. The plot structure -- the quest of Ariel Dorfman for Joseph Hortha, the parallel novel that he is writing -- allows him to explore so many issues and emotions, but what is even more remarkable is how he uses the literary form of the aut0fiction to develop not yet another loathsome navel-gazing narrative, but to open up so many important questions.

[Michael Paquette · Rating 5 out of 5]

A unique and gripping book, a mix of memoir and novel by an author who lived first hand the experiences that surrounded the rise and fall of the Chilean leader Salvador Allende. This book encompasses and examines betrayal, justice, heroism, climate change, and a quest for the truth about how Allende died. The author is paid by the billionaire, who had survived the Nazi death camps, to seek the truth for a museum he is mounting to save the world from the horror of so many suicides. The details of the search and the self discovery that is wrought from delving deeply into those who knew Allende, and knew about his end, are told so exquisitely that it is breathtaking in its scope and the many disparate feelings and emotions it inspires. Truly a brilliant and beautiful work that depicts how we must respond to a dying society on an ever more embattled planet. Probably one of the best, and most engrossing, books I have read in years.

[Marni Fritz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book left me with a haunting somber feeling. At times hard to get through this is a clear outpouring from the author- a story he needed to tell. I think this is why I forgive the length and at times meandering prose. Part memoir, part history, part mystery this book takes you through the finals moments of Allendes presidency, the lasting effects of Pinochet’s coup and the contradictions in the aftermath of both through the experiences of one of Allende’s past advisors returning to Chile from exile. A very vulnerable piece this books forces us to check our egos at the door and reflect on what we’ve assumed our individual roles on this earth are. I think it’s both an existential piece forcing us to confront the distraction of our ideals and the planet itself but at the same time a work of hope and encouragement that we can change course. So much going on here and so many feelings!!

[Dan Cassino · Rating 3 out of 5]

The main thrust of the book- an exploration of the death of Salvador Allende, and what it means to Chileans- is engaging and purposive. It’s basically a mystery story (mirroring a mystery story being written by the narrator), and I was waiting to see what conclusions Dorfman would come to.
But there’s a lot being bolted on to that narrative. The reflections on what it means to come back to a country you’ve long been exiled from fit nicely. A mysterious billionaire’s life, and his connection to the Holocaust, much less so. An extended comparison of suicide and global warming quickly becomes tedious. The magical realism elements about a museum, which is clearly central to the author’s conception, doesn’t work at all.
A book half this length, focusing on just the main through line, would be wonderful; this buries the compelling in a sea of unnecessaries, making it a slog.

[Rob T · Rating 4 out of 5]

A highly enjoyable read, I particularly appreciated the text's self-awareness, e.g. Angelica's Freudian critique of Hortha's story and the narrator's self-justification of his investigative challenges. And just like Ariel, I, too, felt closer to Allende by the end of the story. But I'm not sure I understand, just yet, how the Suicide Museum fits into it all -- it's a little hard to imagine Hortha believing in it, and hard to deliver on the buildup, though he is a strange man. I absolutely shed a tear when Ariel took his son to visit Allende's tomb, and another (metaphorical) tear when the narrator celebrated Chile's now-rejected constitution in the epilogue.

[Christiana Robey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful book as Dorfman is clearly a brilliant man, but at times this book became overwhelmingly tedious. I learned so much about Chilean history and his prose, while pretentious and rambled at portions, is inexplicably beautiful. I struggle to recommend this book as it was nearly 700 pages that at many times (through the entirety of part 1) dragged on in a stream of consciousness that lasted for pages. If you have the time to read this (possibly over a few months) I would recommend it because it was informative and a format I've never seen, but if you aren't into history or well developed female characters you can probably skip this one.