Claudia Piñeiro

Een vrouw keert na twintig jaar terug naar Temperley, Buenos Aires. Ze is iemand anders geworden: haar uiterlijk, haar stem, zelfs haar voornaam. Zullen de mensen die haar gekend hebben beseffen wie ze voor zich zien? En zal híj haar herkennen? Mary Lohan oftewel Marilé Lauría oftewel María Elena Pujol keert terug naar de plek waar ze een gezin had – tot ze besloot te vluchten. Waarom keert ze nu terug en waarom vluchtte ze destijds als een dief in de nacht? Piñeiro weet de lezer haarfijn in deze twee levensgrote vragen te verstrikken en dient dan in tergend kleine porties de elementen van de ware toedracht op. En passant behandelt ze een van de grote, overgebleven taboes: dat van de moeder die haar kind in de steek laat. (Goodreads)… (more)

Children whose parents die are called orphans. What do you call a mother whose children are dead?

The mother has Parkinson’s, and her daughter was her carer.
Their relationship was fraught and quarrelsome.
And then one day her daughter is found hanging in a church. Everyone else believes it was suicide, but her mother believes she was murdered, because it was raining the day she died.
This was quite serious with some intense subjects. The daughter was a pro lifer and intervened in another woman’s life. The answer to her daughter’s death was also hard to swallow, really heartbreaking.
The scene with the cat was touching.

Wish the dialogue had been separated. It was all clumped together.… (more)

Elena knows that she has Parkinson's disease, and that her daughter is dead, and that her daughter's death wasn't suicide. Fuelled by this conviction, hampered by her illness, she battles her way across Buenos Aires to find someone that she believes can help her to prove that her daughter was murdered.

This is a claustrophobic novel, tightly focused on a main character whose circumstances provoke empathy even as she herself is a rather unpleasant person to spend time with. I wasn't entirely convinced by the ending—it both convincingly reframes earlier parts of the book and teeters on the edge of camp.… (more)