The blood that runs through his veins, by Francisco Marín Naritelli, explores the life and mind of a being who has never been comfortable in his (fictional) family unit. Then he discovers a very painful truth that triggers violence and psychopathy.
The blood that runs through your veins
The novel focuses, basically, on Agustín Sinclair. A young man from the middle class who, being from Santiago, has studied Law in Valparaíso. But, he doesn’t work, because he has decided to have a bar.
That life takes him away from his family and opens doors to unknown worlds that will make him rethink life and his past.
Agustín has had a middle-class family life, very conservative, more or less “normal.” With a father who was very right-wing, authoritarian and a lover of General Pinochet. And a mother absolutely subjected to her husband’s machismo.
Up to this point, everything is within a certain normality of the late 90s, the period in which the story is limited. A time of still fearful democracy, with multiple ties left by the dictatorship. To which was added the accommodation and getting used to the benefits of the power of the new ruling classes.
Agustín does not fit with his parents’ wishes. Except when he opens his bar and, each time, he moves further away from them.
Everything changes when he finds out that his parents are, in reality, fictitious parents. Because his real parents, his biological parents, are part of the detainees who disappeared as a result of the dictatorship.
Blood as revenge, offering and pleasure
Discovering this reality – of the son of disappeared detainees adopted by a convinced Pinochetist – causes a disaster that further destabilizes the protagonist. Images, scenes, flashes, even voids that he cannot fill, return to his memory.
“Listen to his name, which sounds like vomit in the mouth of his fictional father. “This little boy is a damn effeminate, a weirdo, a sick shit. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she wore skirts, your rings, and wore a fucking transvestite wig.”. He also hears his fictional mother’s sobs, her compassion, her directness.” (p 66)
All the voids, all the violence, the shortcomings, the inconsistencies materialize in an idea, in an obsession: Revenge. A blood revenge, of extreme violence. A revenge that is for him, for his parents, for the lies. For everyone.
This development, in a combination of fortuitous events, concrete marks and scars, as well as those absences and shortcomings, constitute the bulk of the novel. A story that goes “in crescendo” until it becomes suffocating. As can be the mind of someone who, with specific as well as subjective reasons, is transformed into a psychopath.
Maybe that’s where The blood that runs through his veins should have ended. But it continues, and that solidity of blood, of darkness, of revenge and savage redemption, dilutes, becomes human. Fragile. Clumsy, even. And that future, where Antonia, Agustín’s partner, appears strongly, and the protagonist himself trying for a dignified ending, becomes tortuous. Perhaps affirming or wanting to understand a psychopath made by circumstances rather than innate conditions.
A book that captivates and disturbs. Even in its final part, which can be redeeming or disappointing, depending on who reads it.
Cover of The blood that runs through their veins, Editorial Los Perros Románticos
The blood that runs through your veins
Francisco Marin Naritelli
Romantic Dogs Editorial
2024, Santiago de Chile
