The Rainforest

by Alicia Steimberg, Andrea G. Labinger (Introduction)

For middle-aged Cecilia, the rainforest represents both solace and tenuously controlled danger, as she discovers when she follows the same path each day from her hotel at a Brazilian spa into the surrounding jungle. Although her daily forays are designed to help leave her painful past behind, Cecilia’s thoughts return to her deceased husband, her drug-addicted son, and her own place in the world. These thoughts are her only company until the present intrudes once more in the unlikely form of a fellow patient at the spa, a North American man who might represent a second chance. In The Rainforest , the award-winning novelist Alicia Steimberg offers the reader new definitions of happiness and mature love—or perhaps simply the reassurance that in life, nothing is ever quite as terrible as one fears or quite as glorious as one remembers.

142 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Alicia Steimberg fue una escritora, traductora y narradora argentina.

Reviews

[Leslie Garcés · Rating 4 out of 5]

Prosa suave y oleada, me gustó, la forma de narrar la violencia ejercida por su hijo me pareció fuerte y el amor de la vejez es algo que me gustaría ver más

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fictional memoir by a writer who, in late middle age, considers her struggles, crises, anxiety, and strengths and finds that she has now quite a decent life. At first it seems that she is at the spa in the rainforest to heal from the death of her husband but then we learn about her disturbed, abusive son who perhaps is the real tragedy in her life. At the spa she meets an American man who is not flushed out as a character but seems more to ground her as she analyazes her relationships and the meaning for her future. A good novella, nicely written about a well observed life.

[D'metria · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a good book for teaching about animals and environmental science.