The Details

RACHEL'S PICK

A woman reflects on four important relationships in her life; each has reached its natural conclusion. This is a book that brings together seemingly opposing qualities: it is brief and exhaustive, sentimental and cool. If it had a thesis, it might be something close to these lines, "That's all there is to the self, or the so-called 'self': traces of the people we rub up against. I loved Johanna's words and gestures and let them become part of me, intentionally or not. I suppose that is at the core of every relationship, and the reason that in some sense no relationship ever ends." -RG

NICK'S PICK, TOO

A woman lies in bed with a high fever and the inscription inside a book sends her on a journey through the past. I'm being quite sentimental when I say that I have stopped mid-sentence while reading this book to reflect on moments in my life - at times there were tears. -NR

An intoxicating novel in the vein of Rachel Cusk and Sheila Heti, about a woman in the throes of a fever remembering the important people in her past, her memories laid bare in vivid detail as her body temperature rises.

A woman lies bedridden from a high fever. Suddenly she is struck with an urge to revisit a novel from her past. Inside the book is an inscription: a get-well-soon message from Johanna, an ex-girlfriend who is now a famous television host. As she flips through the book, pages from the woman’s own past begin to come alive, scenes of events and people she cannot forget.

There are moments with Johanna, and Niki, the friend who disappeared years ago without a phone number or an address and with no online footprint. There is Alejandro, who appears like a storm in precisely the right moment. And Brigitte, whose elusive qualities mask a painful secret.

The Details is a novel built around four portraits; the small details that, pieced together, comprise a life. Can a loved one really disappear? Who is the real subject of the portrait, the person being painted or the one holding the brush? Do we fully become ourselves through our connections to others? This exhilarating, provocative tale raises profound questions about the nature of relationships, and how we tell our stories. The result is an intimate and illuminating study of what it means to be human.

Paperback | 144 pages | 5.31" x 8.00"