Talking to Ourselves: A Novel
*Starred Review* After the success of his first novel translated into English, the award-winning Traveler of the Century (2012), Neuman delivers an intimate and honest portrait of estranged love and inevitable loss in taut, exacting prose. This powerful short novel follows 10-year-old Lito, his mother Elena, who is an aspiring academic, and his ailing father, Mario. Father and son embark on one final road trip to transact a questionable delivery, while Elena struggles with sexual temptation and depression in their absence. The narration alternates between Lito’s stream of thought, entries in Elena’s daily journal, and a transcript of Mario speaking, recorded in a hospital room. Lito muses on the latest video games and composes shorthand text messages (“d sz we r v nr wl cl u sn xx”) that his mother finds nearly indecipherable. Elena busies herself with scholarly work, citing authors as varied as Kenzaburo Oe and Irène Némirovsky. Mario teases his son with playful nicknames, like “grumpy arthropod” and “meddlesome marmot.” Neuman’s pitch-perfect, sympathetic characters create an intensely moving story that resists both saccharine sentimentality and easy closure. This nuanced juxtaposition of perspectives solidifies Neuman’s place in the Spanish-language literary pantheon alongside César Aira, Roberto Bolaño, and Javier Marías. --Diego Báez