After leaving the artificial charm of Las Vegas behind, Sergio makes a living working at a military base. While repairing houses and maintaining the complex’s gardens, he enters the lives of characters as diverse as married women in need of a sexual encounter—who are marked by the absence of their husbands at the front—and veterans who carry the echoes of war, facing ghosts that never fade away. In a bold narrative game, the reader becomes an accomplice to the clandestine encounters and gossip of the military base. With a provocative tone, Alberto Roblest invites us to witness the human dynamics that unfold in this microcosm: the unbridled flirtation of the playboy protagonist and the stories that are whispered in the shadows. As relationships blossom and wither, Sergio is presented as an enigma: in sudden dreams—or hazy memories—we find him wandering through the desert, a collar made of ears hanging from his neck. The haunting question persists: to whom do these ears belong? Expertly translated from the original Spanish edition, Collar de orejas, by Dillon Scalzo, the novel combines detailed descriptions with reflections on today’s society to graphically explore the reality of many hard-working migrants facing harsh conditions in the United States.
