Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my free digital ARC! 

This is a quiet collection of stories exploring a myriad of relationships, between families, between husband and wife, between lovers. They’re melancholic, often wistful. Most are hyper realistic, but a couple venture off into more mysterious/magical realms. These two were probably my favourites. The Pink Door sees a man take a gamble on the unknown, rewinding certain parts of his life to relive them. The Torpor is set a few decades from now, in a world where the new normal during 2020 stayed that way, people never leaving their houses and living a life online.

The people in these stories are unsatisfied, confused, yearning, hopeful, stuck. In a world where it sometimes feels like we’re increasingly distant from one another, where dissonance is evermore present, the characters here strive to forge connections, fail as they sometimes do, they’re trying. 

I didn’t find it as impactful as Still Born, but much better developed than the stories in Bezoar. The writing is lovely, translated by Rosalind Harvey.