A house in the middle of the countryside was left uninhabited after the mysterious disappearance of the family ten years ago. Empty of humans, it begins to fill with vegetation, animals, insects; it becomes part of the environment. It remembers its past days: how it came to be a house after being simply a shelter for migrant workers.

Roots spread across the foundations: trees and walls become one with the surrounding hills. Chickens peck at the remains of the cupboards, bugs nest in the hollows of dried-out shoes, and dogs curl up in abandoned sheets that still smell of their owners.

Soldiers from different wars and the ill-fated lover prowl the surroundings: at dusk, the whispering wheel of their troubles can be heard. But the family that the house longs for is silent: Lucero, his wife, and their four children—why don’t they come back? Precise and delicate, this novel combines the poetry of the coast with a bawdy repertoire of anachronisms.

Selva Almada achieves the feat of making the passage of time audible and nature’s stubbornness to recover what men took centuries ago palpable.

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