Mystery, Magical Realism, Satire
We honestly wouldn't be very surprised if this is the only mystery–magical realism–satire that you have ever read in your entire life. These are not genres that you normally see together, but somehow Marquez manages to make it all work. Just not in the way you might expect.
Mystery
Everyone who's read a Dan Brown novel knows how a mystery works. Something happens and the narrator or protagonist spends the rest of the story trying to unravel the mystery behind the event. That's exactly what's happening in Chronicle of a Death Foretold. The narrator is kind of playing the role of the journalist, piecing together testimony and evidence for this murder case.
But here is where Marquez makes a giant change in the way a mystery novel is supposed to work. Normally a mystery gets clearer and clearer as the story goes on and is finally solved at the end. That's not what happens here. Instead, things get more and more confusing and nothing is ever resolved. So our mystery remains a mystery to the very last page.
Magical Realism
Gabriel Garcia Marquez's name is basically synonymous with magical realism. He might not have invented it, but he's probably the author most famous for his use of magical realism in his novels. In this novel, you're kind of getting magical realism on a diet.
Marquez doesn't hit you over the head with the surreal elements. Instead of hordes of ants that devour entire houses, you get things like this:
She had a well-earned reputation as an accurate interpreter of other people's dreams, provided they were told her before eating, but she hadn't noticed any ominous augury in those two dreams of her son's, or in the other dreams of trees he'd described to her on the mornings preceding his death. (1.1)
In certain cultures, things like this are so common that it would be easy to ignore it as an element of magical realism. But even so, it still there. The Vicario brothers stay awake for 100 days. Someone sees a vision of Santiago going back to his room when he had never entered the house. These little elements of magical realism are not overwhelming, but they actually help to destabilize the legitimacy of the narrative. Think about it. Why should we believe anything else the narrator says if he tells us that someone didn't eat or sleep for 100 days? If he can be wrong about that, what else can he be wrong about?
Satire
Despite this being a murder novel, it's actually pretty funny. That's because it's also a satire. Marquez satirizes the culture of machismo that is prevalent in many Latin American communities. The men and women in this town are hyperbolic in the way that they adhere to gender roles. Just like the War of Warcraft episode of South Park, Marquez takes something that is already prevalent in his community and brings it to the extreme logical conclusion. In this case, Santiago gets killed right in the middle of town.
So what does that mean for you? It means that you should keep in mind Marquez isn't trying to depict what would actually happen in a typical Latin American or Colombian town. This is an extreme case. It also means that you can feel free to laugh. After all, Marquez includes phrases like this:
We, his friends, agreed that Pablo Vicario had suddenly developed the strange dependence of a younger brother when Pedro Vicario returned with a barrack-room soul and with the novel trick of lifting his shirt for anyone who wanted to see a bullet wound with stitches on his left side. He even began to develop a kind of fervor over the great man's blennorrhea that his brother wore like a war medal. (3.38)
How could he not want you to laugh?