Papers in the Wind

by Eduardo Sacheri

Genres: Family Life; Literary Fiction; Sports

Synopsis

From the best-selling author of The Secret in Their Eyes, an adventure about friendship, soccer, and good humor
 
When Alejandro “Mono” dies of cancer, his brother and two closest friends, a tight-knit group since childhood, are left to figure out how to take care of his young daughter, Guadalupe. They want to give her all the love they felt for Mono and secure her future, but there isn’t a single peso left in the bank. Mono invested all of his money in a promising soccer player whose talents haven't panned out, and the three hundred thousand dollars Mono spent on his transfer is soon to be lost for good.
 
How do you sell a forward who can’t score a goal? How do you negotiate in a world whose rules you don’t know? How do you maintain relationships when repeated failures create fissures in lifelong loyalties? Fernando, Mauricio, and Ruso pool the few resources in their arsenal to come up with strategies—from harebrained to inspired—in their desperate attempt to recoup Mono’s investment for Guadalupe.
 
Following the lives of four distinct characters, who, despite their great differences, still manage to find solace and pride in one another, Papers in the Wind is a tribute to friendship and proof that love and humor can triumph over sadness.

Release date: May 20, 2014

Publisher: Other Press

Print pages: 416

Sample

When Mono finished high school he had his future crystal clear. The next year they would offer him a professional contract to play for Vélez. In three or four seasons he would become the best number four in Argentina. At twenty-three—twenty-four, at the most—he would be traded for millions to an Italian team. Then he’d play about twelve seasons in Europe. Finally, he’d return to his country to finish his career with Independiente and retire on a high note. But the verbs Mono was conjugating in a self-assured conditional tense didn’t stop there.
 
Once he retired, and in order to continue his association with the world of soccer, he would become a coach. He’d start running a minor-league club and after a few seasons of experience he’d make the t some point, before or after, as a player or as a coach—or better yet, before and after, as a player and as a coach—he would take Argentina to another world title, after defeating England or Germany in the semifinals and Brazil in the final game.
 
He had dreamed of it so many times, and he had talked about it so many times—because Mono was convinced that you shouldn’t keep your great joys quiet, not the ones in the past tense and not the  impending ones—that his friends could repeat his future biography to the smallest detail. Fernando and Mauricio both saw it as a waste of their time, but Ruso would get really excited about it, taking on the roles of agent, masseur, assistant coach, or image consultant, de-pending on his mood.
 
Sadly for both of them, when Mono turned twenty he was called in to see the secretary of Vélez Sarsfield, and they notified him of the only verb in conditional tense he wasn’t prepared for: he would be released, because the club had decided they had no need for his services.