It tells the story of Dr. Andres Miranda, who happens to have a father dying of cancer. He already lost his mother back when he was a little child of ten, from a plane crash. And now, he's losing his father to cancer, but he is having trouble telling his father of his terminal illness. In the meantime, there is also Ernesto Duran, a hypochondriac, convinced that he is gravely sick, and has been pestering Dr. Miranda to see him. Eventually he turns into a stalker, and Dr. Miranda's nurse becomes involved. It is to some extent farcical, but it is actually tackling one of life's major events that everyone at some point will experience, that is death.
If I honestly knew beforehand what this book would be about, I probably would not have picked it up, at least not right now, given that I have experienced a death in the family recently. Perhaps it was just too soon to read about fictional accounts of death and dealing with it, when one has actually dealt with it in real life in the recent past. However, eventually the book just hooked me in, and I couldn't stop reading. It was both profound and philosophical, and it also is fast-paced that it tends to veer into thriller territory. And to be honest, I just liked it. At times I was even giggling and laughing while reading it. As much as death might be undesirable by most of us, it still is a fact of life, and one has to deal with it one way or another.
Overall, I definitely liked this book. It makes one smile in all the unpredictable places. I give it 5 out of 5 stars.
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