Exciting, intense, heart-breaking, and tender. Alice Kellen addresses ageing, love, the passage of time and the true nature of happiness.
Martín, already an old man, returns to the Valencian town where forty years ago he met Isaac, the love of his life. He has never been able to forget him, and he finally feels able to leave everything behind to go in search of him. But can love survive the passage of time? After having spent years living as someone he is not, Martín embarks on a journey of self-discovery that leads him to the man he loved, brings him back to himself, and allows him to live his true identity with freedom.
“In essence, the archipelago theory says that we are all islands, that we arrive in this world alone, and we leave it in exactly the same way, but we need to have other islands around us to feel happy in the middle of this sea that unites as much as it separates. I’ve always thought that I would be a tiny island, one on which there are three palm trees, a beach, two rocks and little more; I’ve felt invisible for much of my life. But then you came along, you who would have undoubtedly been a volcanic island, dotted with caves and blooming with flowers. And that was the first time I wondered if two islands could meet in the depths of the ocean, even if no one could see it. If that is possible, if between the coral and the sediment and whatever else anchors us in the middle of the sea there is a point at which two islands join, without a doubt it would be you and me. And if that’s not the case, you’re so close I’m sure I can swim to you.”
A beautiful story full of tenderness, narrated with a beautiful and delicate prose, and full of characters that touch the reader’s heart through their insecurities, emotions, desires, imperfections, and virtues.
