Shooting Down Heaven

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2020
Translated Lit ·Big Other

Expertly told by one of Latin America’s most exciting voices, Shooting Down Heaven follows the children raised by 1990s Colombia’s most dangerous drug cartels and the consequences that shape their adulthood.

After twelve years away, Larry comes home to his native country of Colombia after his father, an old associate of Pablo Escobar, is murdered. Larry returns to collect his remains from a mass grave and give him a proper burial…but not before a reunion with his childhood friend, Pedro. Pedro picks him up at the airport to take him directly to the Alborada celebration—a popular festival where fireworks explode over Medellín, and the entire city loses its inhibitions. This is where Larry’s story really begins.

His long-awaited 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 still trying to rediscover itself. Unflinching and remarkably controlled, Jorge Franco creates a stunning portrait of a generation wounded by their parents’ mistakes.