Wood, Michael. "The Myth of Gabriel García Márquez." SLATE MAGAZINE May 18, 2009.

Martin, Gerald. Gabriel García Márquez: a Life. New York: Knopf, 2009. Many years later, and many times over, the famous writer was to remember the day he discovered how to set about writing his great novel. He was driving from Mexico City to Acapulco when the illumination hit him. He turned the car around, went home, and locked himself away for 18 months. When he reappeared, he had the manuscript of One Hundred Years of Solitude in his hands. In her hands, his wife had 18 months' worth of unpaid bills. When Gerald Martin, around the middle of his rich and resourceful biography, starts to tell this story, the reader may be a little surprised, even disappointed. "He had not been driving long that day when ... García Márquez, as if in a trance, turned the Opel around, and drove back in the direction of Mexico City. And then ..." Up to this point, Martin has not been challenging what he calls his subject's "mythomania"—how could he, since it's the basis of the writer's art and fame—but he has not been retelling the myths, either. He has been grounding them, laying out the pieces of what became the puzzles. And that's what he's doing here, too, it turns out. He is playing with us for a moment, precisely because the magic of this moment has to be acknowledged in some way. . . . Read the rest here: http://www.slate.com/id/2218411/.