Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Bodies of Summer
    Bodies of Summer
    Bodies of Summer
    Ebook112 pages1 hour

    Bodies of Summer

    By Martin Felipe Castagnet and Frances Riddle

    4/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    The existence of an afterlife is now a fact: heaven is the internet. Death is only an interruption as souls can be uploaded to the web and new bodies can be purchased by those wishing to reenter the physical world. The need to settle an old score pushes Ramiro Olivaires to move from the comfort of virtual existence back into a human body. Ramiro’s grandson, however, can only afford the body of an overweight middle-aged woman. In the shell of this new body, Ramiro must adjust to the dizzying transformations that the world has undergone since his death. Using Ramiro himself as an avatar, Castagnet walks us through a stifling new version of reality where sex, gender, identity, religion, and politics are defined by the limitless possibilities of the human body. Castagnet is considered one of the most promising new voices in Latin American literature and Bodies of Summer shows us why.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDalkey Archive Press
    Release dateJan 27, 2017
    ISBN9781628972078
    Bodies of Summer
    Author

    Martin Felipe Castagnet

    Martin Felipe Castagnet was born in La Plata, Argentina, in May 1986. He holds a PhD in Literature from the National University of La Plata and is currently Associate Editor of The Buenos Aires Review. Bodies of Summer, his first novel, won the Saint-Nazaire MEET Young Latin American Literature Award and has also been translated into French and Hebrew.

    Related to Bodies of Summer

    Related ebooks

    Literary Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Gina Apostol

      Dec 1, 2021

      When the pandemic began I worked fiercely on finishing a novel I had started but dropped a few years ago—because that’s what I do under stress: I buckle down and write. It’s how I cope. The post A Year in Reading: Gina Apostol appeared first on The M

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Ceremony

      Sep 6, 2022

      It was something. Out of nowhere, I didn’t give a shit about anything for like a month. Like nothing. I mean yeah, there’d been plenty of times where I didn’t give a shit about something. Oh that thing? Yeah, fuck that thing. I did it all the time. M

      5 min read

    • Article

      If You Are Permanently Lost

      Dec 15, 2019

      I never have any idea where I am. I lived my whole childhood in the purple foothills of the same five-square-mile town and I still couldn’t tell you whether you turn left or right on the single thruway to get to the grade school or the grocery store,

      7 min read

    • Article

      I Was a Public Schooler

      Jun 9, 2020

      The application to Waverley Glen Academy required that I spend a day sitting in on freshman classes and mixing with the student body to see how well I’d fit in. I was twelve. Picture the gleaming wooden corridors, the Persian rugs, the monogrammed si

      14 min read

    • Article

      Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Winslow, Kois, Tóibín, and More

      Jan 17, 2023

      Here’s a quick look at some notable books—new release titles from De’Shawn Charles Winslow, Dan Kois, Colm Tóibín, and more—that are publishing this week. Want to learn more about upcoming titles? Then go read our most recent book preview. Want to he

      7 min read

    • Article

      Joseph Cassara Wants His Characters to Break Your Heart

      Feb 1, 2018

      The Puerto Rican drag queen is a recognizable personification of New York in the 1980s, the neighbor (and opposite) of the white, Gordon Gekko-style master of the universe with his slicked-back hair. In The House of Impossible Beauties, debut novelis

      12 min read

    • Article

      Genizah

      Sep 1, 2023

      For Jakob Stein Item, copies of Italian Citizenship de jure sanguinis application along with grandfather’s original Naturalization papers, father’s birth certificate with misspellings of proper names and surnames, and grandmother’s passport featuring

      3 min read

    • Article

      'The Raven Tower' Rises From Shakespearean Foundations

      Feb 26, 2019

      Ann Leckie's new fantasy novel is packed with family intrigue, throne-room maneuvering and nods to Hamlet in its story of a son who comes home to find his father missing and his uncle in power.

      2 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Zoë Ruiz

      Dec 9, 2017

      I’m currently reading Aisha Sabatini Sloan’s essay collection Dreaming of Ramadi in Detroit, which was chosen by Maggie Nelson as the winner of the 1913 Open Prose Contest. I’ve been an admirer of Sloan’s essays since her first collection, The Fluenc

      2 min read

    • Article

      An Anti-Racist Poetry Reading List

      Jun 8, 2020

      These recent poetry collections offer poignant narratives and snapshots of racial injustice in America. The post An Anti-Racist Poetry Reading List appeared first on The Millions.

      1 min read

    • Article

      Clarice Lispector’s Children’s Story Taught Me to Read Her Like An Adult

      Mar 17, 2017

      Filmmaker Pedro Almodovar was asked to write an introduction to the translated edition of Clarice Lispector’s final novel Breath of Life. Instead of a formal introduction, his refusal letter was published and said this of Lispector’s work: “Each phra

      7 min read

    • Article

      Fourteen First and Last Sentence Novels

      Apr 22, 2022

      I think of this as a new literary form, a type of novelistic prose poem, a hybrid, a chimera, whose main currency is delight, wonder, and mystery. The post Fourteen First and Last Sentence Novels appeared first on The Millions.

      13 min read

    • Article

      Garden Magic

      Sep 15, 2019

      I took a step further to meet Horace for health, for love, for a leg up. And at Horace’s everything was gray there with some white accents—and the walls were gray, not paint. They were hung with fabric and he had a gray carpet on the floor. Once, bef

      2 min read

    • Article

      My Son Is Undone by My Hair

      Dec 1, 2021

      I mean he buries his face in itand breathes it in, holds it with his little handlike an elephant as I carry himpost-nap, still halfway in a dream. I mean he asks to brush it, then doesfor ten minutes—hours at two—gently. Says again and again Mama,

      1 min read

    • Article

      Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Manguso, Blake, Lavery, and More

      Feb 8, 2022

      Sarah Blake's latest post-apocalyptic novel, Mellors' satirical debut about a couple's impulsive marriage, and Lavery's speculative memoir are new this week The post Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Manguso, Blake, Lavery, and More appeared first on

      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Bodies of Summer

    4/5

    2 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Bodies of Summer - Martin Felipe Castagnet

      1.1

      IT’S GOOD TO HAVE A BODY AGAIN, even if it’s the body of a fat woman that no one else wanted. It’s nice to be able to stroll down the sidewalk and feel the texture of the world. I like to cough until I’m hoarse and inhale the smell of the used clothes in my bedroom. The heat saturates my skin. I squint my eyes. Until recently any light at all was too much for me.

      My son Teo’s grandchildren help me take my first steps. They carry my battery; they twirl around laughing. Our route goes from the house to the corner and back. They clap for me when I make it all the way. I rub the head of the littlest one and say What bright hair you have. My voice sounds strange to me.

      Teo makes gestures from where he sits on the front steps. He opens his mouth but his old age impedes him from speaking. He smiles and nods his head. I take my son’s hand; it’s swollen and feels like a bag of ice, but it has a firm grip.

      1.2

      I decide to go down to the kitchen in the middle of the night. The side effects of returning from flotation are insomnia and extreme hunger. My grandson’s wife left me a bowl of cereal and fruit for after dinner but I finished it immediately.

      Wales insisted that I sleep in the master bedroom on the ground floor but I said I’d be more comfortable in the guest room and the doctor allowed it. Now I regret the decision as I drag my battery on wheels down the staircase; it makes a lot of noise. The lights are off. I sweat. I bang into things; I could easily fall and ruin this body if I’m not careful.

      Even after living so many years in flotation, this house still feels like my home. But everything has changed. It’s as if I’ve returned after a flood, like a wave has washed over the surface of everything, moving the appliances, staining the walls with new colors, and deforming the furniture.

      I have to stop to catch my breath as I make my way to the kitchen. The refrigerator is full of things I can’t eat until I finish adapting. A screen indicates the strength of the wi-fi connection. The fridge is aware of its contents: any item added or removed will register on its inventory. I quickly close the door so that I’m not tempted and because the light makes me blink.

      The oranges are kept in the same place but in a new basket. The silverware is now put away in a different drawer. The knife I used so many years ago is still just as sharp; it must be a different one. I don’t recognize the plates. I pull out a new chair and sit at the old table. A strange difference: the house was falling apart before but now it looks shiny and new. Someone named Cuzco comes in to clean on weekdays. I haven’t met him yet.

      I peel an orange; the smell reminds me of my father. I slowly pick the white skin from each slice before I put it in my mouth. I separate the slice into smaller pieces with my tongue. I suck on the seeds like pieces of candy. I spit them out like chewing gum.

      I trip over my cord and get tangled up in it as I make my way back to my room. I’d prefer not to have to carry this battery around but it’s the only model my family could afford. I pause in front of the bathroom mirror: I see an old woman, short and fat, supernaturally pretty.

      1.3

      As soon as I was alone the first thing I did was put my fingers in my vagina. I didn’t feel anything. I lay in the hospital bed staring out the bare window. I saw my battery for the first time, plugged into my body like a leash between a dog and its owner. The doctors wanted me to sleep. My mind felt fresh even though the head had been used before. If the brain had any memories, they had been erased. My knees didn’t work yet, but the rest of my new body did. The mind interprets the release from flotation like the cessation of a cramp. The absence of my penis, however, feels similar to the phantom limb syndrome that amputees sometimes suffer.

      1.4

      Teo’s grandchildren ask me to play soccer with them. I explain that I can’t, that this body is fragile. Imagine that my skin is like a banana peel. The soccer ball is a star that pulls me into its orbit. I should move out of the way but I remain rooted to the ground at the edge of the garden. The ball comes toward me. I stop it with my foot but I don’t dare try to kick it. It burns my hands as I throw it back to the boys.

      I instinctively begin to smile as I wet myself. At first I’m confused; I try to interpret the change in my body as if I were diagnosing a strange noise in a car engine. Then I relax and enjoy the sensation under the warm midday sun. I don’t want to move, not even to go to the bathroom. I don’t want to leave the sun. I am a tree, its trunk pissed on by a dog.

      A few minutes later the wet diaper begins to irritate my skin which is swollen from the heat. I’m ashamed to ask my grandson’s wife for help. September has a research grant and she works at home most of the day. She takes me to the bathroom to change my diaper. She’s used to helping my son Teo, her father-in-law. September doesn’t remember, doesn’t want to remember, that I was her age when I died.

      1.5

      The glow of a computer fills almost every room. My psychologist says I’m allowed to connect in small doses; internet withdrawal after leaving the state of flotation can be painful. I feel tempted by the web even in front of the refrigerator. I resist the impulse purely out of fear. I wouldn’t know how to work the touch screen, the keyless keyboard, with these fat hands.

      I prowl each space of the house illuminated by a screen. When I can’t stand the urge to let the web suck me in like a mosquito sucks blood, I retreat to the only room that doesn’t have a connection. Teo is sitting on his bed. His sentences are short; he has to break words into syllables as he catches his breath.

      Na-ked in the pour-ing rain.

      I try to fill in the pieces as best I can: Are you remembering something from when you were little?

      He nods his head. On my na-ked horse. He moves his hands slowly. I think he must be hot and I hand him a glass of water. At times he’s more lucid than others. He’s often reliving a past that I wasn’t able to share with him. It was Adela who took them on camping trips after I’d already gone into flotation. I would anxiously await their return so that the kids could tell me what they’d done. I’ve saved the register of every conversation; I could read them now if I dared to connect.

      I leave Teo’s room as he murmurs something about a baby and a screen door. I walk to the computer as fast as my battery will let me. I sit within the range permitted for the verbal indications that guide me through the web with my ridiculously scratchy voice. I want to avoid touching the cold, transparent screen. I could swear that it smells like blood, like amniotic fluid. I know that my senses are overstimulated after returning to the house where I lived an entire life. My dead

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1