“He wanted – wants – to be a writer, but being a writer is not exactly being someone”, states Julián – the main character and narrator in Alejandro Zambra’s The Private Lives Of Trees.

For Julián, the most important people in his life are Verónica and her daughter Daniela, but Verónica is not home yet from her drawing class. He tells Daniela bedtime stories about trees in the park and their secret lives. The narrator states that the book will go on for as long as Verónica is not back home, and Julián goes into a spiral of emotions, wondering why she is not coming back. 

Staging the book spanning for only one night, Zambra lets Julián reminisce about his past life and Daniela’s future that he imagines for her. The theme of family, friendship and loneliness wave throughout Julián’s story. His dreams of becoming a writer shaped him as a person. He describes himself as someone who has images in his head, just observing, not getting involved. And so that’s how the story of The Private Lives Of Trees goes – Julian observing and conjuring images, or should we say mirages, of his life. 

Despite the novel totaling only 86 pages, Zambra manages to enclose an entire world inside, creating an illusion in which you, as a reader, join Julián and become an observer of his life, reversing the roles.