‘Taut, uncompromising study of the faultlines in all of us’ – Juan-Gabriel Vasquez, Author of The Sound of Things Falling IMPAC Prize 2014, Guardian 'A modern Colombian classic...both a story about death and about practical objects' Financial Times 'Extremely potent: sly, voyeuristic, ominously poetic' TLS 'A novel that lingers' Four-star review Telegraph 'The lauded Colombian novelist lives up to the hype...extraordinarily evocative' Independent 'Smoothly intriguing narrative, with its touches of sinister, Patricia Highsmith-like menace' Irish Times ‘A brief, pungent, powerful and unusual tale’ – Monocle ‘Haunting’ – Metro ‘Skillfully planted with narrative bombs... you can hear it ticking’ – Intelligent Life ‘Quietly unsettling, elegantly written’ – Sunday Express 'A fascinating sociological experiment...Tomás González writes with descriptive beauty and subtle irony'  – The Literateur 'Through the sparse language and the handpicked metaphors, the exotic island that J. and Elena inhabit and the realities of mainland South America come to life... lean and severe but still ultimately artistic' Four-star review  – Bookbag 'As menacingly taut as Hemingway’s, and his superlative telling of an idealistic couple’s relationship coming apart at the seams brings to mind any number of US fiction’s modern heroes, from Richard Yates to Jhumpa Lahiri'  – Quadrapheme 'A fascinatingly dark character study...Unflinching, and pitch perfect trip into the dark heart of Colombia and hippy culture in general...above all a powerful debut'  – Upcoming4Me And of course Tomas Gonzalez's moving interview on PEN Atlas