The possessives of Jenn Diaz

The possessives
by Jenn Diaz

«I leave you this letter on the table we bought
us and that is now your table.
Possessives change everything.

An epistolary novel about the end of love and how our daily lives can change in an instant

Intimate and delicate, The Possessives speaks about the need to belong and how we are defined by the bonds we weave throughout life.

Agneta has just separated from Oliver and is alone in a tiny flat full of boxes. Emma, ​​her younger sister, is ill and is still at her grandmother’s house, where she lives isolated from her family, far from the city. No one knows that her friends Sylvia and Mattias visit her from time to time, and in recent days they have seemed strangely distant from each other. For her parents, Helga and Samuel, comfort has long since turned into apathy, but Helga remains cold as ice, and Samuel has lost all interest in anything other than his work. They all write letters to each other, as an attempt to bridge the emotional distance between them through the written letter and the envelope that carries them.

Subtle and perceptive, evoking the literary universe of Natalia Ginzburg in The City and the House, Jenn Díaz immerses us in the intricate web of family relationships, femininity, love and social barriers, offering us a polyphonic portrait woven of encounters and disagreements, desire and resentment, secrets and passions.

Agneta and Emma are two sisters who have grown up under the watchful eye of an authoritarian mother who has led them to seek answers and affection outside the home. Agneta’s recent divorce and Emma’s confinement at her grandmother’s house will make them question the crucial role that relationships have in their lives and how the breaking of these ties can change everything in an instant, leading them to know and discover themselves.

An intimate and delicate novel about the need to belong and how we are defined by the bonds we weave throughout life.