Shooting Down Heaven

Description

Larry returns to Colombia twelve years after the disappearance of his father, an old associate of Pablo Escobar. His remains have finally been unearthed in a mass grave, and Larry is returning to give them a proper burial...but not before a reunion with his childhood friend Pedro. Pedro takes him straight from the airport to the Alborada celebration, during which fireworks explode all over Medellin, and the entire city loses its inhibitions. His homecoming quickly becomes a rude awakening. The years of luxury living in bodyguard-surrounded mansions are now firmly in the past, as 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. Faced by an uncertain reality, Larry is forced to confront his family's turbulent history and reclaim himself from the dark remnants of a city trying to rediscover itself. Unflinching and remarkably controlled, Jorge Franco creates a stunning portrait of a generation wounded by their parents' mistakes.

Award-winning writer Jorge Franco Ramos was born in 1962 in Medelli n. His novels Rosario Tijeras and Paraiso Travels were both bestsellers in Colombia and marked the breakthrough of one of the most promising writers of new Latin American narrative. Shooting Down Heaven has been optioned for TV rights. Andrea Rosenberg translates from Spanish and Portuguese. She holds an MFA in literary translation from the University of Iowa and was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship. She is also the translator of David Jimenezs essays on Asia, Children of the Monsoon, and Pablo Escobar: My Father by Juan-Pablo Escobar.