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I'm having trouble understanding the grammar in this excerpt from the novel by ANTONIO SANTA ANA:
Mi hermano hubiese cumplido ayer 31 años, pero murió hace 5. Se había ido de casa a los 18, yo tenía 5 años. Mi familia nunca le perdonó ninguna de las dos cosas, ni que se haya ido, ni que se haya muerto.
Is there a concrete rule dictating why the author chose the subjunctive?
I'd just like to add to pablodf76's excellent answer that, according to the NGLE (New Grammar of the Spanish Language), this case of subjunctive could be described as "affection" (afección) or "appraisal" (valoración). These are the examples provided under each concept:
AFECCIÓN: Alba perdió el temor de que su madre la abandonara; Entonces me entró miedo de que nos viera alguien; Había tenido la esperanza de que al entrar, Felipe estuviera de lado; Me da pena que alguien sufra por tu muerte; [...] Lamento que nunca hayas sabido amar. VALORACIÓN: Fue una suerte que aceptara efectuarlo; Creo que es una locura que hayas vuelto; A mí no me parece mal que tenga novia; Entonces no veía bien que una señorita hiciera mandados.
Other contexts that require subjunctive, according to the NGLE, are willingness, intention and influence; opposition; cause; achievement; tendency or inclination; and frequency or infrequency.
Under Chapter 24, The Verb, I find two references to the point at issue (the use of subordinate present perfect subjunctive with superordinate past indicative) that seem contradictory (first they claim that mixing past and present may not sound like educated Spanish, but then they admit that there are instances in which such combination is allowed):
24.1.1e [...] En estas variantes (algunas variantes del español popular andino y, en menor medida, del rioplatense) son comunes secuencias como No llovió. Yo quería que llueva (por ... que lloviera), y también las correspondientes con los tiempos compuestos Yo quería que haya llovido (por *...que hubiera llovido). Estos usos no han pasado a los registros formales.
I have to say that the second sentence above, Yo quería que haya llovido, sounds terrible to me and to most Spanish speakers. However, we then find this (V1 is the main verb, and V2 is the subordinate one):
24.3.2e Se denomina DOBLE ACCESO (también DOBLE ANCLAJE O DOBLE ORIENTACIÓN TEMPORAL) a la doble dependencia temporal que muestra V2 en ciertos contextos de subordinación, es decir, al hecho de que V2 puede estar orientado desde el momento del habla, a la vez que en función del tiempo expresado por V1. [...] El jefe comunicó el martes pasado que Pedro está trabajando estos días en un nuevo proyecto.[...]
I think the sentence in question could very well be defined as a case of double temporal reference: Mi familia nunca le perdonó ninguna de las dos cosas, ni que se haya ido, ni que se haya muerto. (My family never forgave him either of these two things: the fact that he has left, and the fact that he has died.) I find it harder to explain "has left", as this was obviously previous to the person's death (the only reason could be that the writer meant for those two verb phrases to form a pair, that is to say, he just wanted to seek parallelism). However, his death has present results (he is now dead), and this is something that has never been and will never be forgiven, as the writer intends to express in my opinion.
As far as I can see, this is one of those usages of the subjunctive that you have to learn by heart. Wikipedia says:
The subjunctive of a verb is used to express certain connotations in sentences such as a wish or desire, a demand, an emotion, uncertainty, or doubt.
So I guess perdonar might go under the "emotion" verbs. It does indeed require the subjunctive in phrases like
No le perdono que me haya abandonado.
Nunca me perdonó que le hubiese gritado.
As noted in the comments, the mix of tenses in the text you cited is a bit odd, but depending on your understanding of the situation, it might be OK. Or maybe it's ungrammatical but the text simply reflects careless, natural speech.
Colloquially, I wouldn't find fault with using the indicative tense in the examples (No le perdono que me abandonó, etc.), but I think this might be dialectal.
