Tuesday, February 4, 2025

Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro

Elena KnowsElena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"The trick is to lift up the right foot, just a few centimetres off the floor, move it forward through the air, just enough to get past the left foot, and when it gets as far as it can go, lower it. That's all it is, Elena thinks. But she thinks this, and even though her brain orders the movement, her right foot doesn't move. It does not lift up. It does not move forward through the air. It does not lower back down. It's so simple. But it doesn't do it. So Elena sits and waits."

Elena is waiting for the medicine to take effect. Claudia Piñeiro, described on the back of the book as a crime writer, has written a haunting, detailed story of a mother trying to understand her daughter's death by hanging. The police have closed the case as suicide but Elena knows it can't be true. The book is divided into three sections label by each of the day's pills (L-Dopa) the narrator ingests to move her Parkinson's-riddled body as she investigates the death. The writing is dense, the chapters short but this story is a first-person pondering on aging, illness and caregiving. I found it completely absorbing, not without humor, and relatable to friends who have had this horrible disease. I have ordered others of Claudia Piñeiro's novels and hope they share the fine translation of Frances Riddle .



View all my reviews

No comments :