“Listening to stories gives you many lives, telling them dims loneliness.” — Marcela SerranoNine Chilean women with divergent life stories — from a teenaged lesbian struggling to find acceptance to a woman confronting the loneliness of old age — come together to talk about their triumphs and heartaches. They all have one person in common, their beloved therapist Natasha who, though central to the lives of all of the women, is absent from their meeting. The women represent the many cultural and social groups that modern Chile is comprised of — from a housekeeper to celebrity television personality. They are of disparate ages and races and their lives have been touched by major political events from the dictatorship of Pinochet to the Israel-Palestine conflict. But despite their differences, as the women tell their stories, unlikely bonds are formed, and their lives are transformed in this intricately woven, beautifully rendered tale of the universal bonds between women from one of the most Latin America’s most celebrated novelists.