Palabras Prohibidas

By Fernando Castillo*

Just over 600 pages, that’s the first warning I must give you, dear reader. If you decide to dive into this novel by Joël Dicker, let me warn you right off the bat: it’s going to be hard to get hooked at first.

Checking my X timeline (formerly Twitter), I realized I bought this book on August 26, 2024, read just one chapter, and didn’t pick it up again until June 11, 2026. And yes, you’ll have to flip back and re-read pages to avoid losing the plot amidst its constant timeline jumps across three eras: 1975, 1998, and 2008.

On one hand, in 1975, 15-year-old Nola Kellergan vanishes without a trace. 1998 is the year the friendship between Marcus Goldman and his mentor Harry Quebert is forged. By 2008, the central axis of the book takes us by the hand alongside the young writer Marcus Goldman, who is trying to overcome a bout of writer’s block by visiting his former professor and now friend, Harry. Shortly after his visit, the plot takes a sharp twist with the discovery of Nola’s corpse buried in the garden of Quebert’s house.

What is the main goal of these 600-plus pages? To prove Quebert’s innocence regarding the murder of the young girl he was in love with.

American Clichés, a “Formidable” Ego, and an Overly Nosy Mother

Joël Dicker is a foreign writer, and it shows. I think I speak for anyone who has ever tried to write about a reality we aren’t immersed in—from the very first descriptive lines, you can tell the plot relies heavily on the clichés we’re used to seeing about the United States: an idyllic New England town, the quintessential diner with American coffee and local gossip, and the postcard vision of publishing success that Hollywood has sold us. This same postcard idealization is evident even down to the choice of cover art, which features Edward Hopper’s painting Portrait of Orleans.¹ The publisher bets on the visual nostalgia of Hopper—the painter par excellence of American melancholy—to sell you an atmosphere that, once you open the book, feels stiff and wooden.

The story moves slowly—almost needlessly slow. It is packed with repetitions that make you feel as though you accidentally flipped back a page and are re-reading the exact same paragraph from a few minutes ago. Personally, a novel packed with detailed descriptions—like those of Stephen King—fascinates me, but in this case, all that detail feels redundant. The underlying plot is quite simple, and ironically, all this repetition only makes the narrative feel clunky.

But let’s talk about the protagonist without giving away spoilers. Marcus Goldman is the literary embodiment of many young people who long to become famous by writing a single book. Passages come to mind where he is photographed on the street almost like a TV celebrity simply because of his debut—is that even possible? Can you write a single book and instantly become the next big promise of American literature?

His personality—inherited, I dare say, from his mother—is the complete package of clichés: ambitious, arrogant, pushy, immature, and inexperienced. The fact that he calls himself “The Formidable” tells you everything you need to know about his inflated ego. I’ve always said that if a character is designed to be obnoxious, you have to applaud when they succeed in evoking that emotion; but in this case, all he manages to evoke is pity, as his ego competes in every single paragraph used to describe him. Unless, of course, that was the intention—to make us pity him.

And what can be said about his mother and his interactions with her? Honestly, they border on the ridiculous: a hyper-intrusive woman, obsessed with marrying him off to any woman who crosses his path, to the point of accusing him of being gay if he doesn’t. A family drama that sometimes feels ripped straight from a soap opera, completely shattering the seriousness of the mystery. Paranoia over her son’s fame even drives her to think they will be attacked because of the things he writes.

Handling Taboo: Dicker vs. García Márquez and Nabokov

The core of the main love story is, through a modern lens, almost ridiculous. An adult man’s attraction to a minor evokes immediate repulsion. Granted, if we look back at the 1970s—the decade where the romance takes place—the topic was an absolute taboo that nobody spoke about. Perhaps that discomfort and rejection is precisely the feeling the author wanted to plant in the reader; I don’t really know.

However, the execution feels clumsy and melodramatic, especially when compared to other works that have touched upon similar sensitive nerves. I think, for example, of Gabriel García Márquez’s Memories of My Melancholy Whores (2004). I read it nearly two years after it came out, when my own mental maturity was less developed, and yet I was fascinated by how he handled the subject.

The great «Gabo» narrates the story of a 90-year-old journalist seeking to spend a night with a virgin teenager. Despite being extremely treacherous terrain, the Colombian master approaches the situation from an entirely different perspective in terms of desire, character psychology, and protection. Dicker’s attempt, unfortunately, remains strictly on the surface—almost as if romanticizing that kind of relationship.

In fact, it is impossible to read it without the shadow of Vladimir Nabokov and his Lolita looming over the room. Dicker tried to play in that same sandbox of taboo, but with a vastly different outcome. Unlike the Swiss-based author, Nabokov uses a poetic, hypnotic, and wickedly brilliant prose. He doesn’t justify his protagonist; instead, through language, he exposes the raw, unvarnished mind of a manipulator. He creates an ethical conflict within you because the writing is breathtaking, even as the act is monstrous.

Dicker, on the other hand, by relying on cheesy and repetitive writing, sugarcoats the romance between the writer and the minor in a melodramatic tone of “true, misunderstood love.” In the 21st century, that approach simply no longer works. It feels clumsy, dangerously idealized, and consequently triggers an immediate pushback from modern readers. There is none of the psychological depth that García Márquez achieved, where decay and desire are explored with a far higher level of literary maturity.

It isn’t the worst book I’ve ever read, but I’m not sure if it will be the last one I read by this author either. It suffers from a heavy structure and cartoonish characters, yet it possesses one undeniable merit: despite all my complaints, I felt compelled to keep turning the pages until the very end.²

What about you? Have you read it yet? Do you think the blame for such a repetitive narrative lies with the translation or the author? I’ll read your thoughts in the comments.

¹ Footnote 1: I decided to buy the book because I consider myself a huge fan of painting, and I’m fascinated by the scenes captured by Edward Hopper. When I saw the cover, I couldn’t help but feel mesmerized; my first impression was to connect it immediately with Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) and the painting that inspired it, titled House by the Railroad (1925). I imagined it would be a quiet, introspective story, loaded with psychological tension and that raw American melancholy so starkly portrayed by Hopper. I would have loved for the book to be written with that same restraint: fewer cheesy, repetitive dialogues and more depth into the secrets of Aurora. Regrettably, the prose didn’t do the painting justice.

² Footnote 2: If you ask me how I would have preferred it to be written, the answer is simple: with half the pages and double the literary maturity. A tighter plot in the style of Ernesto Sábato’s The Tunnel; characters with real nuances (rather than caricatures); and a mystery that respects the reader’s intelligence instead of repeating the same points every three chapters. The author should have focused more on the psychological torture Harry Quebert faced by being attracted to a 15-year-old minor; played more with his attempts to fall in love with Jenny (someone older and age-appropriate); truly reflected his frustrations poured into his book The Origin of Evil; and made the real killer something far more macabre—almost in the vein of Psycho or Sábato’s work.

*Bachelor’s Degree in Linguistics from the University of Colima. Feel free to send questions or comments to lcastilloochoa@gmail.com