This took far too long to read.
It's autobiographical, the author simply swaps out the lead character for himself, returning to Mexico after a long hiatus, with a new wife, afraid of confronting old people, situations, trying to put right a past that can't be put right or in any sort of order.
He's an alcoholic, forever struggling against the temptation of another drink, and - for a book containing relatively little action, it's a masterpiece of the interior life of the chaotic and suffering artist.
Now - a masterpiece is true, and his prose is magnificent, the directions his mind takes - unravelling memory, experience, sleep, the perpetually neurotic over analyzing of the minutiae of life, the failure to take both remedial and obvious steps, well, I get it. I get it too well. And so it's uncomfortable, we've a great deal in common, if only I possessed a teaspoon of his talent, and so it took forever to read and now, now, finally it's done.