Impulse

NOVEL, PRH, 2022, 216 PAGES

A social drama of increasing familiarity, a pact of silence, a secret love.

What would you do if you suspected that your son was a murderer? How far would you go to protect him? When Ada wakes up one Sunday morning to find that her children aren’t in the house, she thinks nothing of it. They said they’d be staying the night with friends. She makes her mate tea and turns on the TV. The horrific news jolts her awake: a teenage boy has been killed coming out of a club. The body covered with a white cloth takes up the entire screen. She thinks of the victim’s mother, turns off the TV and bursts into tears.

The night before, Magda is getting ready to go out, she can’t wait to see Damián. The pre-show party is full of excited teenagers, music, friends and alcohol. It could get out of control at any moment.

The story told in Impulse is sadly relevant: teenage violence following well-established patterns of hatred and machismo. A boy’s life suddenly cut short: the culmination of an unexpected chain of events driven by fatal instincts. However, the real tragedy of the story lies elsewhere: with a mother torn between conflicting impulses.