Shooting Down Heaven

The children of Colombia's drug lords face a rude awakening in a "supremely well-crafted" novel by one of "the best Latin American writers at work today" ( Kirkus Reviews, starred review). After twelve years away, Larry comes home to Colombia when his father, an old associate of Pablo Escobar, is murdered. Larry plans to collect his father's remains and give him a proper burial . . . but his childhood friend Pedro has other plans. Picking him up at the airport, Pedro takes him directly to the Alborada celebration in Medellín—where Larry's long-awaited homecoming takes an increasingly grim turn. The years of luxury living in bodyguard-surrounded mansions are over. Larry watches his family—including his ex-beauty queen mother and troubled brother—fall deeper into depression, drug addiction, and the traps of the family business. Now Larry must confront his family's turbulent history while protecting himself from the dark remnants of a lost and struggling city. Unflinching and remarkably controlled, Jorge Franco's Shooting Down Heaven is a stunning portrait of a generation wounded by their parents' mistakes.