A novel about the power of childhood and imagination, about the invisible evil that stalks us, and about the possibility of becoming free again.
The world seems divided between those who act without intimidation and those who move forward with pain hidden beneath the skin. For Loris, that pain was born in childhood, despite the summers spent with Grandpa Tempesta. By his side, the need to read to chase away anxieties faded: Loris managed to live in the present while learning to tend the garden, build birdhouses, and raise pigeons, always loyal and iridescent.
Thirty years later, Loris lives in the city and has made reading his profession. However, behind the facade of a stable life, precarious editorial work and the anxiety of not measuring up consume him. The refuge of childhood seems to have vanished. Day after day, Loris withdraws into himself, attentive only to the alarms of his own body. He is convinced that an invisible evil stalks him, an ailment no one else perceives.
While doctors, his girlfriend, and his parents become distant figures, Loris finds refuge only in two allies: social media — relief and nourishment for his ghosts — and Catástrofe, a mutant creature with cat eyes, fish skin, and wolf ears who accompanies him in isolation and whom only he can see.
