(Reviewed by JD Jung)
#CommissionsEarned
“The river calmly flowed and cried its eternal murmur. Raimundo got up and looked at the empty sky. The shadows had taken over the blue as well. The stars must have fallen and become the seeds of reality at his feet.”
Raimundo could never forget his first love, Cicero. They both knew they were risking everything by being together. If their families found out they could be ostracized, beaten, or worse, killed.
Raimundo is in his seventies now and has lived life in the margins of Brazilian society. It’s been fifty years since he’s seen Cicero, and he is still holding on to an unopened letter from him. Growing up poor, Raimundo is illiterate, but he decides to finally learn to read in order to decipher the letter. Then again, should he destroy it instead? After all, Cicero knew he couldn’t read, so why would he even write to him?
Though poetic, the author also writes with haunting clarity. He structures the story with such skill, going back and forth between their early days and Raimundo’s present. Though we anxiously anticipate what he decides to do and possibly learn what ever happened to Cicero, it’s Raimundo’s life in between that keeps the reader captivated. We learn about a life of pain and longing, but also one of survival, family secrets, and how fear leads to violence. At only around 150 pages, the plot and characters are still fully developed.
The Words That Remain is a heart-wrenching story that I highly recommend.
