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A review by jenni8fer
The Remainder by Alia Trabucco Zerán
3.0
3.5 stars
Three young people - Felipe, Iquela, and Paloma - children of ex-militants in Chile are haunted by remnants of the country's terrible history. Felipe and Iquela are cousins, while Paloma's Chilean mother was married to a German and she grew up in Germany after her parents fled the country prior to her birth. Paloma visited Iquela and her family as a child but only returns later as an adult to have her deceased mother flown from Germany to Chile to be buried. Only the flight carrying the body is rerouted to land outside of Chile. All three go on a road trip in a hearse to Argentina in search of Paloma's mother's body, all three dealing with differing mental fragilities. Paloma is grief-stricken in a foreign country; Iquela has issues with her overbearing mother and growing up with a father who was dying, and Felipe is highly sensitive to thinking he sees dead bodies everywhere he goes. He is concerned with reconciling the dead to a remainder of zero so that they will go away. Both he and Iquela lost their fathers; his father was turned in and tortured to death, so he is especially fragile. None of the three make it back home. Felipe deserts the women with the body and finds salvation in the liquid elixir that Paloma's mother was taking for her cancer, a hallucinogenic drug, prior to her death that gives him a high that ultimately kills him. Haunting and surreal.
Three young people - Felipe, Iquela, and Paloma - children of ex-militants in Chile are haunted by remnants of the country's terrible history. Felipe and Iquela are cousins, while Paloma's Chilean mother was married to a German and she grew up in Germany after her parents fled the country prior to her birth. Paloma visited Iquela and her family as a child but only returns later as an adult to have her deceased mother flown from Germany to Chile to be buried. Only the flight carrying the body is rerouted to land outside of Chile. All three go on a road trip in a hearse to Argentina in search of Paloma's mother's body, all three dealing with differing mental fragilities. Paloma is grief-stricken in a foreign country; Iquela has issues with her overbearing mother and growing up with a father who was dying, and Felipe is highly sensitive to thinking he sees dead bodies everywhere he goes. He is concerned with reconciling the dead to a remainder of zero so that they will go away. Both he and Iquela lost their fathers; his father was turned in and tortured to death, so he is especially fragile. None of the three make it back home. Felipe deserts the women with the body and finds salvation in the liquid elixir that Paloma's mother was taking for her cancer, a hallucinogenic drug, prior to her death that gives him a high that ultimately kills him. Haunting and surreal.