First published 2019
Seventeen-year-old Luisa abandons her Mexico City routine one autumn afternoon. She boards a Pacific coast bus with Tomás, a boy who barely registers in her life but promises the recklessness she craves. Luisa carries an odd fixation: she wants to find a group of Ukrainian dwarfs who fled from a Soviet circus touring Mexico. The troupe's uncertain fate consumes her dreams as she lands in a Oaxaca beach town. Zipolite draws hippies, nudists, and wanderers who spin strange tales. Luisa walks the sand searching for someone who will stay mysterious no matter what happens between them. The quest proves harder than she imagined. She drifts through the local bar and shoreline, losing herself in the stories of strangers on this Beach of the Dead. Back in Mexico City, her father begins his own search for his missing daughter. Joy Division and Nick Cave pulse through Luisa's journey toward whatever freedom means when you're seventeen and desperate to disappear.
Genres: literary-fiction, adventure, mystery, contemporary
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, quest
Setting: Mexico City, Oaxaca, Zipolite
Period: Autumn
101 pages · ebook · Catapult