First published 2020
Luisa decides not to go home one autumn afternoon in Mexico City. Instead, the seventeen-year-old boards a bus to the Pacific coast with Tomás, a boy she barely knows. He represents everything missing from her life: boldness, drive, freedom. Tomás can also help her pursue a peculiar fixation. She wants to find a troupe of Ukrainian dwarfs who recently escaped from a Soviet circus during their Mexican tour. Luisa settles in a beach community in Oaxaca, surrounded by hippies, nudists, treasure hunters, and storytellers. The escaped circus performers fill her dreams as she searches for someone who will remain mysterious no matter what happens. Walking the shoreline and frequenting the local bar, Luisa begins to vanish dangerously from the lives of strangers in Zipolite, the Beach of the Dead. Her quest proves easier to imagine than to accomplish.
Genres: literary-fiction, adventure, contemporary, magical-realism
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, quest
Setting: Mexico City, Oaxaca, Pacific Coast, Zipolite
Period: Autumn
184 pages · Paperback · Lumen