The Private Lives of Trees Audiobook By Alejandro Zambra, Megan McDowell - translator cover art

The Private Lives of Trees

A Novel

 Preview

Get 30 days of Standard free

Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30-day trial. Cancel anytime
Try for $0.00
More purchase options
Buy for $11.25

Buy for $11.25

The second novel by the internationally celebrated writer Alejandro Zambra, a “short and strikingly original” (The New Yorker) book about the stories we spin for ourselves and our loved ones—now reissued by Penguin

Veronica is late, and Julián is increasingly convinced she won't ever come home. To pass the time, he improvises a story about trees to coax his stepdaughter, Daniela, to sleep. He has made a life as a literature professor, developing a novel about a man tending to a bonsai tree on the weekends. He is a narrator, an architect, a chronicler of other people's stories. But as the night stretches on before him, and the hours pass with no sign of Veronica, Julián finds himself caught up in the slipstream of the story of his life—of their lives together. What combination of desire and coincidence led them here, to this very night? What will the future—and possibly motherless—Daniela think of him and his stories? Why tell stories at all?

The second novel by acclaimed Chilean writer Alejandro Zambra, The Private Lives of Trees overflows with his signature wit and his gift for crafting short novels that manage to contain whole worlds. Literary Fiction Family Life World Literature Genre Fiction United States Latino American
No reviews yet