Talking to Ourselves: a Novel

A searing family drama from one of Latin America's most original voices One trip. Two love stories. Three voices.
     Lito is ten years old and almost sure he can change the weather with his mind. His father, Mario, is gravely ill and anxious to create a memory that will last his son?s lifetime. Without revealing the truth of his health, Mario takes Lito on a journey through strange geographies that seem to meld the different parts of the Spanish-speaking world. In the meantime, Lito?s mother, Elena, restlessly seeks comfort in books but soon undertakes an adventure of her own, full of moral ambiguity. Each narrative?of father, son, and mother?embodies a different way that we talk to ourselves: speech, thought, and writing. While none of the three dares to tell the complete truth to the other two, their intersecting voices create a gripping story.
     Circling around one family?s loss, Andrés Neuman movingly narrates the ways the lives of those who survive are transformed, and how the acts of reading, sex, driving, and silence can serve as powerful modes of resistance. Talking to Ourselves presents a tender yet unsentimental portrait of love and family; a reflection both on grief and on the consolation of language. With his characteristic humor and wide-ranging intellect, Neuman, the author of the award-winning Traveler of the Century, delivers a rich melody of three singular voices in a profound tribute to all those who have had to care for a loved one.