"I'd seen him before, though not there. A while ago, I can't remember where. I'd been to so many places. He'd probably been to many places too. At one of those places, perhaps. Here and there. Though we didn't realize this until we finally spoke, maybe not even then. We had no words. There was only movement, sweat, his body and mine coming close, not wanting anything besides getting ting closer to each other's warmth."

I have had my eye on this book for more than a year ever since I spotted it on Archipelago's site and was dismayed that its release was far off. I was rewarded for my patience. In these stories, Abreu charts what it is like to dream while wide awake, stuck in a tragic rut with a slim possibility of egress. There is a frenetic, almost feverishly intense, quality to his writing style that makes reading a visceral experience, especially in stories where the PoV is particularly specific. Many of these stories have second-person elements or narration, turning the reader into a participant.

Most of them have queer strands or characters and they explore people straddling the edge, of lives hanging in balance just by a thread, of the existential madness kept in check. Abreu deftly portrays individuals longing for connection and hoping to belong, but at the same time anxious about union, fated to be short with a residue of disappointment, even of alarm. They transform from strangers to selves to strangers again in a rapid sequence of events. Bruna Dantas Lobato renders a stunning translation that captures the shifting and vivid prose of Abreu, story to story.



(I received a finished copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.)