After her "Trilogy of Men" (The Wind That Blows Away, Brickmakers, and It's Not a River), Selva Almada decided to take her writing project a step further, narrating the rural life in the interior of Argentina. This time, the native of Entre Ríos sets the story in a house that has seen its occupants, the Lucero family - the father, the mother, and their four children - leave and never return. A disappearance in the midst of democracy.
Interestingly, Almada tells the story from the perspective of the house itself. This viewpoint is rarely used in contemporary literature, which is dominated by autofiction, intimacy, and urban settings. Swimming against the current of the urban rhythm that demands speed, Almada delivers a novel written with delicacy, precision, and great depth.
It requires a calm, reflective reading, akin to the rural time surrounding the house. The mystery of what happened to the Luceros is narrated by the house itself as roots corrode the foundations, insects take over the corners, and vegetation intertwines with the structure. The natural overtakes the human, questioning the nineteenth-century discourse of technical dominance over the wild.
This "voice of the foundations" is complemented by a space where specters from different eras coexist: gauchos, deserters from the Urquiza wars, a veteran of the Malvinas, and forgotten women. Almada abandons traditional narration to successfully embrace a more sensory and fragmented form, where time dissolves and events are perceived as overlapping layers. A Lonely House confirms Selva Almada as one of the most original voices in contemporary Latin American narrative.