The Trail We Leave

In this overly sentimental collection of 10 short stories, Palma, who was born in Chile and forced to flee to Denmark because of the Pinochet coup in 1973, tries to evoke the alienation of life in an adopted country. Palma's main characters, most of whom are men, are plagued by guilt and despondency as they struggle to reconcile their old lives in Chile with their new ones in Denmark. Infidelity is a recurring theme. In ""Edgardo and Teresa,"" two Chilean lovers throw furniture and punches at each other when Teresa suspects Edgardo of cheating on her with a Danish woman. In ""Adam and Shaha"" a poem-scribbling, heart-sick Chilean refugee must choose between his Chilean and Danish lovers. Palma's men are all essentially versions of the same self-tortured victim of circumstance, and his women are simply foils for their lovers' inner struggles. The most inventive piece in the collection is ""Zapatito,"" about a crippled ping-pong prodigy who acts as a Yoda-like mentor to a Chilean refugee. Unfortunately, even this unusual character does not save the story from a predictable ending. Evocative bits of memory brighten these cliched portraits of tortured artists, promiscuous lovers and exiled revolutionaries, but clunky, melodramatic sentences (""'Faggot!' she said, with the greatest contempt, 'A real macho doesn't hit women'"") are likely to test the patience of many readers.