"Extraordinary...reach[es] a new, unexpected, dissident realism." --Alejandro Zambra, author of My Documents and Multiple Choice

Alone again in a Chile punctuated by graves, footsteps, x-rays, and crosses, Nancy looks back on her life. Before her cancer, before her husband's ridiculous death, before she fled home hidden in the back of a truck, she spent her youth at Playa Roja, hearing the rumors of disappeared girls and dead boys while swimming alongside her friends and the creepy old gringos. Her family lost to religion, alcohol, and violence, Nancy has been forced to fend for herself in a world designed to crush her. She keeps going despite it all.

And now, recounting her story from her deathbed, Nancy takes this life in her hands, shapes it anew, and turns it into something else: not a mere calendar of crossed-out days but a wholly original testament to the quiet dignity of a difficult journey.