This is my first encounter with Nunez and is a remarkable assembly, a meditation about everything, especially the significance of death, and then in the second half something else, the twist of the story. The quiet exit from disease contemplated by the friend is turned into something messy, convoluted, perplexing. My feeling for the authority of the writing grew as I read. There are many ways in which I thought this book was developing but the writer did something different than anything I imagined, all in a precise, contemplative tone that almost mocks itself when the planned death presents itself and life still continues to twist and turn. I am writing carefully so as not to spoil anything because I think this is a book you should encounter without much warning.