Hitchens writes introduction to House of Spirits

"My own family is not the only one where there exists an extraordinary bond between grandfather and granddaughter. The emotional strength of this phenomenon has been noted many times (some people even joke that such alliances are so durable and intense because they are based upon a common enemy). At any rate, we know from the highly candid and affecting memoirs of Isabel Allende that her own grandfather, Agustin Llona, was in many ways the 'main man' in her early life: the representative of the masculine virtues. Indeed, he is the raison d'être of this novel." More here. Isabel Allende's The House of Spirits stands comparison with One-Hundred Years of Solitude.