During the course of a single night, Father Sebastian Urrutia Lacroix, a Chilean priest who is a member of Opus Dei, a literary critic and a mediocre poet, relives some of the crucial events of his life.

Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima, poets and leaders of a movement they call visceral realism, leave Mexico City to track down the poet Cesarea Tinajero, who disappeared into the Sonora desert - and obscurity - decades before. But the detectives are themselves hunted men, and their search for the past will end in violence, flight, and permanent exile.

An unnamed narrator attempts to piece together the life and world of an enigmatic would-be poet turned military assassin during Pinochet's regime in Chile.

The body of Stuart Pedrell, a powerful businessman, is found in a Barcelona suburb. He had disappeared on his way to Polynesia in search of the visionary spirit of Paul Gauguin. Who better to find the killer of a dead dreamer than Pepe Carvalho, overweight bon viveur and ex-communist?