I have often spoken with editors and booksellers about a matter that is quite incomprehensible: collections of short stories or narratives – some say one thing, others another – are difficult to sell. In most cases, all of us participating in the conversation agree that the short story is an excellent genre, that we are a country with a very good tradition of short story writers, but alas, the idea has taken hold that readers are not in favor of them, so few short stories are published. Few are also written, and we don't know which came first, the chicken or the egg. It is also significant that short story awards are significantly less substantial than novel awards.
And, on the other hand, when you stumble upon a good collection of short stories, the experience is formidable. Each narrative is a polished and complete piece, a universe created in a few pages. Short story writers have a great ability to create a story and characters and present it to us in a limited number of words.
This is the case with La vida es breve, etcétera, the collection of narratives by Veronica Raimo published by Libros del Asteroide, translated by Carlos Gumpert. The author, born in Rome in 1978, is the author of novels, poetry, and short stories. She has also written screenplays for cinema and has translated Scott Fitzgerald and Ray Bradbury, among others.
In La vida es breve, etcétera, Raimo offers us a wide range of female characters who experience unusual and often uncomfortable situations. The author has an acidic gaze that invites us to see life as a kind of game that, at the same time, confronts you with a reality that is sometimes harsh and sometimes sad. In many cases, the starting point is a misunderstanding, as in the story Los enanos no se miran: an Italian woman has to visit New York and a friend offers her to stay at her relatives' house. When she arrives, the family receives her as if she were the Italian cousin, and she does not dare to correct the mistake. While she lives this situation feeling almost kidnapped by her hosts, the 9/11 attack occurs, which adds a considerable degree of surrealism to the situation.
In La sacudida, a small earthquake catches the protagonist in bed with a man who is not hers. In El regalo a girl moves into an apartment where she will live alone for the first time. The next day, euphoric about her brand new independence, she finds a cucumber encased in a condom on her doorstep. Here begin her speculations about who the author of the misdeed might be and, above all, with what intention he might have done it.
In my opinion, the best story is the one titled Presencia, which has a breakup as its sole and powerful argument. The pages of this story are full of possible definitions: “A breakup is an open bet,” “A breakup is a distraction,” “A breakup is a misunderstanding. A snag in automatisms. The arrogance of the autocorrect.”
In the last story, El premio Generosidad, there is a portrait of the Catholic school that, for those of us who have lived through it, can be hilarious. Read stories!
