Flora is visiting home in Mexico when the family dog leaps up and bites her hand. She winds up in the hospital where she undergoes several surgeries under anaesthesia and meets Wilhelmina, an elderly German woman with pneumonia, who collects pre-cinema toys and instruments. The two of them embark on a series of dream-like conversations in the hospital corridors. Wilhelmina puts on a magic lantern show for Flora, leaving her spellbound. When things take an unexpected turn, Flora finds herself entrusted with an important mission. She returns to London, where she resumes her job polishing silver at a jewelery shop, and strikes up a strange friendship with Wilhelmina’s son, Max. As Flora dips in and out of her imagination, she is increasingly aware it’s not only the magic lantern that projects, and her perception of reality is subtly altered.
The book has an intense flavour that can only come from an author’s deep investment in their material ... Aridjis has a way of telling a story that makes us believe. Even the most unusual details feel emotionally true — and that, surely, is the essence of fiction.
