The Private Lives of Trees

Omtale

The second novel by the internationally celebrated writer Alejandro Zambra, a short and strikingly original (The New Yorker) book about the stories we spin for ourselves and our loved onesnow reissued by PenguinVeronica is late, and Julián is increasingly convinced she won't ever come home. To pass the time, he improvises a story about trees to coax his stepdaughter, Daniela, to sleep. He has made a life as a literature professor, developing a novel about a man tending to a bonsai tree on the weekends. He is a narrator, an architect, a chronicler of other people's stories. But as the night stretches on before him, and the hours pass with no sign of Veronica, Julián finds himself caught up in the slipstream of the story of his lifeof their lives together. What combination of desire and coincidence led them here, to this very night? What will the futureand possibly motherlessDaniela think of him and his stories? Why tell stories at all? The second novel by acclaimed Chilean writer Alejandro Zambra, The Private Lives of Trees overflows with his signature wit and his gift for crafting short novels that manage to contain whole worlds.