This paper analyses critically the novel El desbarrancadero in light of some theories related to ruins, garbage and confession, to determine that what has been called ruin in Fernando Vallejo's literary work, is a differentiated reality of rubble that puzzles the writer's real and fictional space. Along with the rubbish from normative discourses, this reality makes up a source of confessional formulations and a complex system of virtual presence related to the destruction/repair of the rubble, in order to institute the literary work as pure ruin.