Amalgama / Amalgam
Short stories and novellas , 2014
Nova Fronteira
Rubem Fonseca's new book of stories contains all of the elements –eroticism, violence, narrative pace, a noir atmosphere– that characterise his works, and have established him as one of Brazil's most important and interesting contemporary authors.
In the 34 stories that make up this volume, we find a mother who plans to sell her baby so she can buy dentures (El hijo), and a man who discovers a cat murderer in the park and considers questions such as “What pleasure could there be in killing a cat? Is someone who kills cats capable of killing a person?” (Esto es lo que usted debe hacer.) These stories by Rubem Fonseca are populated by characters and situations linked by pain, anger and failure, by tenderness and love, a true amalgam of lives that are built and destroyed in an instant.