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“It would be better to close the book, close the books, and to face, all at once, not life, which is very big, but the fragile armour of the present.”
Verónica is late, and Julián is increasingly convinced she won’t ever come home.
To pass the time, Julián improvises a story about trees to coax his stepdaughter, Daniela, to sleep. He has made a life as a literature professor, developing a novel about a man tending to a bonsai tree on the weekends. He is a narrator, an architect, and a chronicler of other people’s stories.
But as the night stretches on before him, and the hours pass with no sign of Verónica, Julián finds himself caught up in the slipstream of the story of his life – of their lives together. What combination of desire and coincidence led them here, to this very night? What will the future, and possibly motherless Daniela think of him and his stories? Why tell stories at all?
This narrative unfolds as a tapestry of moments that shape the past, predict the future, explore what could have been, and envision what may come to pass. The storytelling adopts a meandering, dream-like quality, traversing through a single night and Julian's impromptu tree narrative. The transitions between past, present, and an imagined future blur, mirroring Julian's restless insomnia in the dead of night. You sit and question throughout the book, where is Verónica? Why has she not come home?
When I think of Fitzcarraldo Editions books, I think of books that have no start, middle or end. Trying to get away from mainstream books and find those that not everyone is aware of has been my reading goal for a while now. I’ll admit that I don’t think I’ve quite learned to fully appreciate this type of fiction as much as I would like but I’m getting there, and I know that there is a time and a place for me to savour works like this as I open myself up to more reading experiences and books from Fitzcarraldo Editions.
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