“These twenty-nine stories prove Fraile to be an obsessive and precise writer who, like Anton Chekhov or Jane Bowles, is fascinated by the silent despair underlying everyday life. . . . [They] are masterfully muted, their insights impactful but delayed. They resist explanation and action, choosing, instead, to focus on the increasingly overlooked aspects of life: the dimness of aging, the burden of inexplicable gestures, the scything sound of footsteps crossing the sidewalk. Fraile’s stories, tightly controlled and peopled with scrupulously-rendered characters, offer a fine deviation from the giddy desperation of much contemporary literature. English readers are lucky to finally have the opportunity to read Fraile’s crystalline work.” – The Iowa Review
“Life lasts only a few minutes, but Fraile’s narrative “nose” will endure for ever.” - Andrés Neuman
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