We were all like that once; or if we weren't, we probably wish we had been.

The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño

The Savage Detectives is a grubby epic, part road movie, part joyful, nostalgic confession. It starts as a diary, written by the 17-year-old Juan García Madero, who comes under the spell of the revolutionary-minded poets Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima (for whom read Bolaño himself and his friend Mario Santiago) and their "visceral realism" movement, in Mexico City in 1975.

These pages read like a homage to Kerouac's The Dharma Bums, as Juan learns to drink, argue, screw and write. They are at once brimming with exuberant, innocent depravity, and open to mature condescension. We were all like that once; or if we weren't, we probably wish we had been.
- On the trail of the runaway poets