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A review by bennygroo
Daytripper by Gabriel Bá, Fábio Moon
4.0
A lovely, life affirming work. Impressive how it manages to be so, despite featuring multiple gruesome deaths.
Whenever online discourse or friends describe a work as being "one of the greatest examples of its medium", I can never help but expect a grand, sweeping story full of ecstatic highs and moments where your heart leaps out of your chest. Daytripper had been described to me in such terms, but Daytripper isn't a rip-roaring, high-stakes tale.
That's because that's not what life is either, at least most of the time. Life is what Moon and Bá want to explore.
Because of my off-base expectations, when the novel's central conceit reveals itself, I was intrigued. Death is recurring, but why? I was sure I was about to delve into a fantastical tale of time-travel, time-loops or parallel realities.
Here's where I was wrong: deaths in Daytripper are not a mystery to be uncovered -in fact they're never explained at all- but that doesn't make them meaningless. Deaths in Daytripper are a tool to make the reader reflect upon their own lives and the moments that make them. Moon and Bá are reminding us that any one of us could be gone tomorrow, so savour every second and don't linger on decisions, before or after. I'm always grateful to read a story that reminds me of that.
Whenever online discourse or friends describe a work as being "one of the greatest examples of its medium", I can never help but expect a grand, sweeping story full of ecstatic highs and moments where your heart leaps out of your chest. Daytripper had been described to me in such terms, but Daytripper isn't a rip-roaring, high-stakes tale.
That's because that's not what life is either, at least most of the time. Life is what Moon and Bá want to explore.
Because of my off-base expectations, when the novel's central conceit reveals itself, I was intrigued. Death is recurring, but why? I was sure I was about to delve into a fantastical tale of time-travel, time-loops or parallel realities.
Here's where I was wrong: deaths in Daytripper are not a mystery to be uncovered -in fact they're never explained at all- but that doesn't make them meaningless. Deaths in Daytripper are a tool to make the reader reflect upon their own lives and the moments that make them. Moon and Bá are reminding us that any one of us could be gone tomorrow, so savour every second and don't linger on decisions, before or after. I'm always grateful to read a story that reminds me of that.