Pedro Paramo is a 1955 novel by Mexican author Juan Rulfo. In the novel, Juan Preciado returns to his mother’s hometown after her death to seek out his father. Rather than his father, he discovers a town populated by ghosts and traumatic memories. Pedro Paramo has been hailed as one of the most important novels of the 20th century and a vital foundation stone in the genre of magical realism.

This guide uses the 2014 Serpent’s Tail edition, translated into English by Margaret Sayers Peden.

Content Warning: The novel contains portrayals of rape, domestic violence, and death by suicide throughout.

Plot Summary

The narrative of Pedro Paramo is told in a non-linear fashion. The story frequently switches between time, place, and narrators, while the plot is composed of 68 “fragments” that take place in and around the Mexican rural town of Comala. Broadly, the novel is split into two parts. The first is set in the present, in which Juan Preciado searches for his long-lost father, Pedro Paramo. The second is set in the past, in which Pedro Paramo gains control of the town of Comala by terrorizing the inhabitants.

In the present narrative, Juan’s mother Dolores is dying. She makes her son promise to go to Comala to find Pedro Paramo, revealing that Pedro is Juan’s father. Juan travels to Comala, meeting a donkey driver named Abundio Martinez. They arrive in the town to discover that Comala is an abandoned ghost town and that Pedro has been dead for many years. Abundio reveals that Pedro is also his father, so the two men are brothers. Walking through the town, they are sent by a spectral woman to find Dona Eduviges Dyada, a friend of Dolores.

In the past narrative, Pedro Paramo is a young farmer. He runs errands while thinking about the girl of his dreams, Susana. In the present, Eduviges tells Juan about Dolores’s brief and unhappy relationship with Pedro. They were married for less than a year. She tells the men a story, in which the ghost of a horse belonging to Pedro’s criminal son Miguel can be heard running through the streets of Comala. The horse feels guilty for Miguel’s death.

In the past, Pedro’s family frets about their debts. The death of Miguel Paramo is told from the perspective of Father Renteria, a local priest. Since Miguel killed Renteria’s brother and raped Ana, Renteria’s niece, the priest refuses to perform the service but he accepts a bribe from Pedro to do so. His guilt is compounded by his refusal to bless Eduviges.

In the present, Juan is kept away by the ghost of Toribio Aldrete. He is invited into the home of Damiana Cisneros, a woman from Comala who takes pity on him. In the past, a young Pedro arranges a marriage to the daughter of the man to whom he owes the most money. Once the engagement is set and the debts erased, he accuses a neighbor of falsifying documents and then has him killed, taking all the neighbor’s land.

In the present, Juan spends a night in Comala and hears disembodied voices and strange sounds. When he follows Damiana Cisneros, she vanishes. Wandering through the town, he hears two people telling a story of being terrorized by the Paramo family. Juan is able to sleep when an unnamed woman leads him to a rundown house. He suffers from nightmares, however. As he writhes, a local named Donis talks to his sister about what Juan could be doing in the town. When he wakes up, Juan speaks to Donis’s sister. She locks herself inside to hide from the ghosts of Comala. Juan tries to rest during the day but, at night, he hears the voices again. In a nightmarish flurry of events, Donis’s sister seems to sink into mud, and Juan is overwhelmed. Juan dies, but he returns to a state of consciousness when he “awakes” in a grave alongside Dorotea. She believes that Juan died of fright.

In the past, Miguel Paramo pays Dorotea to find him women. After Miguel dies, Pedro does not mourn. Though he is the father of dozens of people in Comala, he only recognized the orphaned Miguel after being asked to do so by Renteria. Father Renteria tries to make confession but is told that his own sins cannot be forgiven. In the present, Juan and Dorotea overhear the ghost of Pedro’s wife, Susana, whose death caused Pedro to drive the whole of Comala into the ground.

In the past, Susana returns to Comala with Bartolome, her father. In their absence, Pedro has risen to power in the town to give Susana whatever she wants. Bartolome plans to return to his mine after the violence of the Mexican Revolution has passed. When Bartolome leaves, Pedro orders him to be killed. Susana marries Pedro but she is haunted by the death of her husband, Florencio. Pedro does not care about the Mexican Revolution, only about Susana. Susana’s health becomes poor. She refuses Renteria’s offer of a final communion so that she can die peacefully alone. When the townspeople mistake the tolling bells for good news, Pedro is so angry with them that he decides to destroy Comala. He dwells morbidly on Susana’s memories while the town decays. Later, Abundio Martinez is devastated by the death of his wife. He drinks and wanders through Comala. Spotting Pedro and Damiana, he attacks them with a knife. He kills Damiana and believes that Pedro is fatally wounded. In a final fragment, Pedro stands after the attack and—with one final thought of Susana—collapses.