The Night Buffalo

A Novel

Guillermo Arriaga

• Publisher: Atria Books
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9780743299923
• Topic: Littérature
• Subtopic: Littérature générale

Guillermo Arriaga is an award-winning, internationally acclaimed writer already familiar to fans of his films, the Academy Award -- nominated 21 Grams, Amores perros, and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, which won a Palme d'Or for Best Screenplay at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. Though more famous in the United States for his films, Arriaga is first and foremost a brilliant novelist. Now he is poised to make his mark on the literary landscape with The Night Buffalo, a new novel and the first of three to be published in the United States. Luminous writing characterizes this novel of love and friendship, passion and betrayal, lunacy and mental illness. The Night Buffalo is set in Mexico City, revolving around the mysterious suicide of Gregorio, a charismatic but troubled young man who was betrayed by the two people he trusted most. The beautifully rendered narrative is driven by what is concealed and what is revealed. The sum leads finally to the truth of how Gregorio ended up "on his mother's lap, stretched out on the back seat of the car his father feverishly drove to the hospital" and the aftermath of his demise. Arriaga's insight into human foibles and emotions is apparent in every story he crafts. His work is both universal in the themes it explores and unique in its style and setting located in his native Mexico.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Also by Guillermo Arriaga
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• I decided to visit Gregorio…
• We spoke for hours…
• Four days later…
• Margarita tried…
• Joaquín, his younger brother…
• The wake was…
• At five o’clock…
• I tried to read…
• I got up at dawn…
• I woke up four hours later…
• I got up out of bed…
• I went down…
• I felt I’d find Tania…
• Disheartened…
• By the time…
• I walked into…
• I walked out…
• We looked for…
• We found it…
• We sat in…
• I agreed to take…
• Margarita’s parents…
• Nervous…
• Margarita walked…
• I tried to fend…
• The curly-haired…
• I left the room…
• I went to…
• I got to the room…
• We made love again…
• At three in the morning…
• I drove in the middle…
• I felt comforted…
• I put the box…
• Although I was afraid…
• At eight in the morning I…
• Pancho unlocked…
• I lay on the bed…
• I walked around the city…
• I put Ruvalcaba’s…
• I left the motel…
• He drove silently…
• Tania gave the impression…
• Camariña looked worried…
• Nobody was home…
• I took a bite…
• I couldn’t bear being…
• Little by little…
• We arrived at one…
• The fat guy insisted…
• I took the elevator…
• I drove for several blocks…
• I stopped in front…
• Five minutes later…
• Between the front gate…
• The rain stopped…
• I walked out…
• The fat guy’s…
• In the kitchen…
• I took my message…
• I walked into…
• I was awakened…
• I got up to look…
• I opened the curtains…
• “Psychotic episode”…
• Four months…
• I walked out…
• I put the photographs…
• I started by opening…
• I counted a total…
• The phone rang…
• I’d seen him…
• During secondary school I…
• After dinner I…
• It started to hail…
• I drove full speed…
• I stood under the window…
• We drove aimlessly…
• Margarita was a woman…
• I returned to the car…
• Exhausted, I made…
• I took him home…
• One night…
• Three days…
• I got back home…
• Tania’s black Jetta…
• Just before dawn…
• The motel was empty…
• I found Tania…
• We had tamales…
• We decided to leave…
• When I was about…
• I arrived back home…
• I went to bed early…
• The next day I…
• In the first class I…
• The letter had…
• I got up at midnight…
• I spent the night…
• The rest of the morning I…
• I had no choice…
• It wasn’t possible…
• I left the bedroom…
• The cars were moving…
• I drove distraught…
• Macías was waiting…
• “Do you know…
• Furious, I headed…
• “Do you want…
• Tania’s parents…
• Tania didn’t arrive…
• I was unable to sleep…
• I went back to my room…
• At three in the afternoon…
• We made it to the zoo…
• I reached the feline area…
• I lay on the grass…
• Exhaustion overcame me…
• A veterinary doctor…
• I went to reception…
• She started to get dressed…
• On the piece of paper…
• Two hours later…
• For most of the trip…
• Twenty, Thirty minutes…
• Dinner didn’t arrive either…
• Within the folder…
• I reread her testimony…
• I slept for a while…
• The commander…
• The pain was intense…
• My parents arrived…
• An hour later…
• At three I ate…
• I wasn’t wrong…
• We talked for a long time…
• At nightfall…
• At eight o’clock…
• As the thin man…
• One afternoon…
• The silence inside…
• I slept deeply…
• Manrique arrived…
• I went into the motel…
• I locked myself…
• I soon ran out of money…
• I’d asked Pancho and Camariña…
• Camariña…
• The next morning…
• Two days later…
• A few days…
• One night…
• I didn’t go back home…
• Margarita lied…
• According to Manrique…
• Tania disappeared…
• I’ve been back to the zoo…
• The last message…
• Once I went to see a movie…
• There are many nights I…