The People of Paper [Paperback]

THE PEOPLE OF PAPER is an astonishing debut novel about the anguish of lost love. Author Salvador Plascencia, a once-in-a-generation talent (George Saunders), weaves together the stories of a large cast of colorful characters, including: a disgruntled monk, a father and daughter, a gang of carnation pickers, and a woman made of paper.

PRAISE FORTHE PEOPLE OF PAPER

Salvador Plascencia's surrealistic metanovel, styled a la García Márquez, is a charming meditation on the relationship between reader, author, and story line, filled with mythic imagery . . . and unforgettable personalities . . . Readers will find it hard to turn away fromThe People of Paper.A. --Entertainment Weekly

A nervy new voice . . . Finally, beyond all the experimental devices, fairy-tale antics and fabulist inclination, Plascencia's novel is a story of lost love. --San Francisco Chronicle

CHAPTER
ONE
yyy
 
SATURN
 
Federico de la Fe discovered a cure for remorse. A remorse that started by the river of Las Tortugas.
Every Tuesday Federico de la Fe and Merced carried their conjugal mattress past the citrus orchard and laid it down at the edge of the river. Federico de la Fe would take out his sickle and split open the mattress at the seams while Merced sucked on the limes she plucked from the orchard.
Merced sent Federico de la Fe across the river to cut fresh straw and mint leaves while she pulled straw, wet with urine, from the open mattress.
For the first five years of their marriage Merced felt no shame in having a husband who wet his
bed. She got used to the smell of piss and mint in
the morning. And she could not imagine making
love without the fermenting stench of wet hay
underneath her.
When Little Merced was born, Merced joked about Federico de la Fe giving up his cotton under-briefs in exchange for cloth diapers like the ones their daugl³Ô