{"product_id":"learning-to-talk-to-plants-isbn-9781782275770","title":"Learning to Talk to Plants","description":"\u003cb\u003e\"Between rage and sadness, Orriols presents a journey towards maturity in a story full of hilarious moments and tenderness.\" --\u003ci\u003eDiari Ara\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn immersive, moving novel about complex grief: a woman attempts to rebuild her life after her boyfriend leaves her for another woman, then dies hours later--perfect for fans of Cheryl Strayed\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePaula's partner has died in a car accident - but no one knows her true grief. Only hours before his death, Mauro revealed that he was leaving her for another woman.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePaula guards this secret and ploughs on with her job as a paediatrician in Barcelona, trying to maintain the outline of their old life. But all of Mauro's plants are dying, the fridge only contains expired yoghurt and her mind feverishly obsesses over this other, unknown woman.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs the weeks pass, vitality returns to Paula in unexpected ways. She remembers, slowly, how to live. By turns devastating and darkly funny, \u003ci\u003eLearning to Talk to Plants\u003c\/i\u003e is a piercingly honest portrayal of grief - and of the many ways to lose someone.\"Marta Orriols debuts with a brilliant novel\" \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e-- Time Out\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Marta Orriols is an exceptional writer\" \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e-- El Periódico\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Marta Orriols has the ability to put into words the brevity and the unforeseen circumstances of everyday life\" \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e-- El País\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A beautifully written novel about complex grief and a woman’s attempt to rebuild her life after the sudden death of her long-time partner… a small but rich and profound story, and I would strongly recommend it for anyone who loves beautiful writing and a very introspective, revealing story.\" \u003cb\u003e--Lily Bartels of The Open Door Bookstore on Northeast Public Radio\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eMarta Orriols is a Spanish writer living in Barcelona. She studied History of Art at university and later Screenwriting at the Bande à Part Film School in Barcelona and Creative Writing at the Escuela de Escritura del Ateneu Barcelonés. Her first novel, \u003ci\u003eLearning to Talk to Plants\u003c\/i\u003e, won the Omnium Cultural Prize for the best Catalan novel.1\u003cbr\u003e “Pili, check the equipment, fast! Is she breathing?”\u003cbr\u003e “No.”\u003cbr\u003e “Let’s start positive-pressure ventilation.”\u003cbr\u003e I repeat the baby’s vitals in a whisper, like a litany. \u003ci\u003eI know,\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003elittle one. This is no way to greet you on your arrival into this world,\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003ebut we have to get you breathing, you hear me?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Thirty seconds.” \u003ci\u003eOne, two, three… there’s a woman lying over\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003ethere, your mum, and she needs you, you see her? Come on, you can do it,\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eten, eleven, twelve, thirteen… come on, breathe, you got this, I promise\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003ethat if you can do this, things’ll change, this world is a good place to\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003ebe. Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty. Living is worth the effort, you\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eknow? Twenty-three, twenty-four… sometimes it’s hard, I won’t lie,\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003etwenty-six, twenty-seven, come on, sweetie, don’t do this to me. I promise\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eit’s worth it. Thirty.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Silence. The baby girl doesn’t move.\u003cbr\u003e “Pili, heart rate?”\u003cbr\u003e My eyes meet the nurse’s vigilant gaze. This is the second\u003cbr\u003e time this has happened recently and I know that warning\u003cbr\u003e look. She’s right, I shouldn’t raise my voice so much,\u003cbr\u003e I shouldn’t raise it at all, in fact. I’m not comfortable. I’m\u003cbr\u003e hot and my right clog is rubbing against a little blister I got\u003cbr\u003e from my sandals in the last few days of my summer holiday.\u003cbr\u003e In these crucial moments, right after birth, the blister and\u003cbr\u003e this heat are the last thing I need. Our absolute priority for\u003cbr\u003e the baby is to keep her from losing body warmth. Perhaps it\u003cbr\u003e wasn’t such a good idea to travel at the crack of dawn and\u003cbr\u003e go straight to work without stopping by the house to unpack\u003cbr\u003e and shake off the strange sensation of having spent almost\u003cbr\u003e two weeks away, far from work, from my babies’ medical\u003cbr\u003e records, from the blood work, from the lab, far from everything\u003cbr\u003e that makes me tick.\u003cbr\u003e New decision. With short, quick movements, I stimulate\u003cbr\u003e the soles of the baby’s feet and, as always happens when I do\u003cbr\u003e that, I curb my desire to press harder, with more urgency.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eYou can’t do this to me, little one, I can’t start September off like this,\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003ecome on, breathe, pretty girl. \u003c\/i\u003eReassessment.\u003cbr\u003e I try to concentrate on the information on the monitor\u003cbr\u003e and on the girl, but I need to close my eyes for a second since\u003cbr\u003e I can’t cover my ears, and the questions launched at me by\u003cbr\u003e her mother, which sound like a disconsolate moan in the\u003cbr\u003e delivery room, throw me off worse than ever. Other people’s\u003cbr\u003e suffering now feels like an overloaded plate after I’ve eaten\u003cbr\u003e my fill. I can’t take in any more and it sends me running\u003cbr\u003e in the opposite direction. Every pained cry and whimper\u003cbr\u003e becomes Mauro’s mother’s sobbing on the day of his burial.\u003cbr\u003e It ripped at the soul.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eBreathe, pretty girl, come on, for the love of God, breathe!\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I furrow my brow and shake my head to remind myself\u003cbr\u003e that I shouldn’t stir up all that. Not here. Here you shouldn’t\u003cbr\u003e make waves. Here you shouldn’t remember. Not here, Paula.\u003cbr\u003e Focus. Reality hits me like a pitcher of cold water and\u003cbr\u003e instantly puts me in my place: I have a body weighing only\u003cbr\u003e eight hundred and fifty grams that hasn’t taken a breath,\u003cbr\u003e laid out here on the resuscitation table, and its life is in my\u003cbr\u003e hands. My sixth sense kicks in, guiding me more and more.\u003cbr\u003e That sense somehow maintains a balance between the most\u003cbr\u003e extreme objectivity, where I retain protocols and reasoning,\u003cbr\u003e and my shrewd ability to harness my intuition, without which,\u003cbr\u003e I’m convinced, I couldn’t aid these tiny creatures with their\u003cbr\u003e arrival into the world.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eListen, little girl, one of the things worth living for is the sea.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Pili, I’m turning off the ventilation. I’m going to try\u003cbr\u003e tactile stimulation of her back.”\u003cbr\u003e I take a deep breath and let it out like someone preparing\u003cbr\u003e to leap into the void. My mask acts as a wall and holds in\u003cbr\u003e my exhalation, a mix of the fluoride toothpaste I found this\u003cbr\u003e morning in my father’s bathroom and the quick, bitter coffee\u003cbr\u003e I drank in a motorway service station. I miss my things, my\u003cbr\u003e normal life. I miss my coffee and my coffeemaker. The smell\u003cbr\u003e of home, my rhythm, not owing anyone any explanations,\u003cbr\u003e just being able to do my own thing.\u003cbr\u003e I rub the baby’s tiny back as gently as I can.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eThe sea has a rhythm, you feel it? Like this: it comes and it goes,\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eit comes and it goes. You feel my hands? The waves come and go, like\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003ethis. Come on, beauty, the sea is worth living for, there are other things\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003etoo, but for now focus on the sea, like this, gentle, you feel it?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “She’s breathing.”\u003cbr\u003e The first cry was like a miaow, but we received it with the\u003cbr\u003e joyful relief that greets a summer storm.\u003cbr\u003e “Welcome…” I’m not sure if I’m saying it to the baby or\u003cbr\u003e to myself, but I have to struggle to hold back my emotion.\u003cbr\u003e I wash her with quick movements I’ve made hundreds of\u003cbr\u003e times before. It calms me to see her colour improving, that\u003cbr\u003e transparent skin taking on a reassuring pink tone.\u003cbr\u003e “Heart rate?”\u003cbr\u003e “One hundred and fifty.”\u003cbr\u003e “Pili, let’s put on a CPAP and put her in the incubator,\u003cbr\u003e please.”\u003cbr\u003e I look over my mask into her eyes to make her understand\u003cbr\u003e that I’m sorry about my earlier tone. It’s best to keep Pili\u003cbr\u003e happy, otherwise she acts all offended and pays me back by\u003cbr\u003e making me wait for the blood work. At least she gets cross\u003cbr\u003e with me, which is something in and of itself. For the last few\u003cbr\u003e months everyone’s been incredibly forgiving when I lose\u003cbr\u003e my patience and their indulgence actually makes me more\u003cbr\u003e angry and irritable.\u003cbr\u003e As I wait for the incubator, I rub the baby’s tiny back\u003cbr\u003e sweetly, this time to thank her for making that immense\u003cbr\u003e effort to cling to life. But I can’t help thinking that, deep\u003cbr\u003e down, I’m touching her for some other, more elusive reason\u003cbr\u003e too, something to do with the fact that she’s still here when\u003cbr\u003e Mauro isn’t. Because he’s not here, Paula. He’s gone and, yet\u003cbr\u003e he comes to me even here as I’m handling these few grams\u003cbr\u003e of gelatinous life.\u003cbr\u003e “Here you go, Mama. Give your daughter a kiss.” I bring\u003cbr\u003e the baby over to her mother for just a few seconds so they\u003cbr\u003e can meet. “She had some trouble breathing but now she’s\u003cbr\u003e fine. We’re going to bring her up to the ICU like we talked\u003cbr\u003e about, OK? I’ll be back in a little while to explain everything\u003cbr\u003e in detail. Don’t worry, everything’ll be fine.”\u003cbr\u003e But I don’t promise her anything. Even though the mother’s\u003cbr\u003e eyes are begging me to give them hope, after Mauro\u003cbr\u003e I don’t make any promises.","brand":"Pushkin Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303784337637,"sku":"NP9781782275770","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781782275770.jpg?v=1767731246","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/learning-to-talk-to-plants-isbn-9781782275770","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}