Falls mark the rhythm and memories of a father who discovers in fatherhood the philosophy of how ordinary people live and die. Through surrealist suggestion, in a narrative touched by the magical fatalism of South America. The fall of his son Tito's heartbeat during labor, caused by a doctor's inadequate intervention, which left him born with cerebral palsy; the falls he takes daily during his walks, which his father prevents; the falls of countless figures in art and literary history, great and small, disputed and beloved; terrible historical events, falls of our humanity.
When Tito bursts into his first laugh watching his mother stumble over a carpet and fall, the author's darkest anguish ends. He finds the strength to give himself completely to his work as a father. "These falls remind me constantly of the fragility and transience of everything I tried to build"—yet since Tito's birth, all such efforts have lost their meaning entirely. And as in a Rembrandt painting, intimacy, family, imperfection, and the ordinary become the center of life. The Brazilian author constructs a strikingly original book, full of images and simple, intimate photographs among which shines Tito's warm smile, and whenever he falls, he laughs until he can barely breathe.
Cristina Tersigni, 2013