Ramifications

Books

"On a Tuesday in July 1994, Teresa leaves her home in a residential neighborhood of Mexico City and travels to Chiapas, drawn by news of the formation of the Zapatista National Liberation Army. She leaves behind a sixteen-year-old daughter, a solitary, introspective son of ten, and a husband she has long regretted marrying. Twenty-three years later, her son, the narrator of this novel, lies prostrate in a bed, meticulously going back over the events of the summer that changed his life forever: the long mornings trying without success to make origami figures, his attempts to get along with his teenage sister's school friends, his fantasies and his quest, guided by the children's books he reads, to discover the whereabouts of his mother. The boy forms an alliance with his sister's boyfriend, a local teenager of ill repute, and sets off on a bus in search of Teresa. During this journey, he becomes aware of the existence of evil, but also of the kindness of strangers. Between premonitory dreams, flashbacks to ...