Post by @federicabalbi

A girl grows up in Cascais, the fancy coastal city near Lisbon, dreaming to be middle-class to show her worth and carrying the weight of a complex familiar situation. Her father likes gambling to the point of giving life to a new branch of statistics of his own creation. But what are the odds of all the insignificant, terrific or distressing events of a person’s life?

Teoria das catástrofes elementares develops as a succession of scenes that intertwines the present of a mother of two with her recent and distant memories, as well as with the not-so-remote past of her ancestors who fought during the Portuguese colonial war in the 60s and 70s, or those who were appointed to military charges in the previous century.
Rita Canas Mendes writes with a distinctive, witty style that makes the reading very enjoyable, often pausing to question various themes: violence and abuse, the female body, the meaning of ‘family’, colonialism, and so on. This slim novel published by Penguin (Elsinore collection) thus turns into a faceted mirror of a present that tries to make sense of itself, and to find answers for the future.