Umami

Title:

Umami

Author:

Jufresa, Laia, 1983- author.

Added Author:

Hughes, Sophie (Translator),

Personal Author:

Jufresa, Laia, 1983- author.

ISBN:

9781780748917

Physical Description:

273 pages : illustration ; 23 cm

Abstract:

Deep in the heart of Mexico City, where five houses cluster around a sun-drenched courtyard, lives Ana, a precocious twelve-year-old who spends her days buried in Agatha Christie novels to forget the mysterious death of her little sister years earlier. Over the summer she decides to plant a milpa in her backyard, and as she digs the ground and plants her seeds, her neighbors in turn delve into their past. The ripple effects of grief, childlessness, illness and displacement saturate their stories, secrets seep out and questions emerge &#x; Who was my wife? Why did my Mom leave? Can I turn back the clock? And how could a girl who knew how to swim drown?

Subject Term:

Grief -- Fiction.

Neighborhoods -- Fiction.

Preteen girls -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

Mexico City (Mexico) -- Fiction.

Summary:

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... Belmont	Book	FICTION JUFRESA	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Hull Street	Book	FICTION JUFRESA	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Westover Hills	Book	FICTION JUFRESA	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

'A wonderfully surprising novel, powered by wit, exuberance and nostalgia.' Chloe Aridjis, author of Sea Monsters

A captivating portrait of contemporary Mexico, cut through with dazzling wit and sensitivity

It started with a drowning.

Deep in the heart of Mexico City, where five houses cluster around a sun-drenched courtyard, lives Ana, a precocious twelve-year-old still coming to terms with the mysterious death of her little sister years earlier. Over the rainy, smoggy summer she decides to plant a vegetable garden in the courtyard, and as she digs the ground and plants her seeds, her neighbors in turn delve into their past. As the ripple effects of grief, childlessness, illness and displacement saturate their stories, secrets seep out and questions emerge - Who was my wife? Why did my mom leave? Can I turn back the clock? And how could a girl who knew how to swim drown?

Using five voices to tell the singular story of life in an inner city mews, Umami is a quietly devastating novel of missed encounters, missed opportunities, missed people, and those who are left behind. Compassionate, surprising, funny and inventive, it deftly unpicks their stories to offer a darkly comic portrait of contemporary Mexico, as whimsical as it is heart-wrenching.