Summary

Chapter 1 introduces Abel, a young Colombian man, as he looks back on his childhood from 1986-1999 in a small town in Norte de Santander. He refers to himself in the third person as “Abelito,” to emphasize that the child he used to be is dead. When he is eight years old, he meets his first communist guerrilla, a terrifying figure nicknamed “The Carpenter.” For as much as the psychopathic revolutionary is feared by the locals, he is also respected for the mercy he shows in not killing the children of all the adults that he slaughters. The guerrillas take over the town and bring people from the Medellin drug cartel to introduce the local farmers to coca, promising them profitable returns if they switch to coca production, which most gladly do. After the results of an unspecified election, fighting erupts in...