Perhaps life is neither destiny nor chance, but to what extent do we have responsibility over certain events that happen to us?
It has been almost twenty years since Marilé Lauría left her birthplace in Argentina following a life-changing event: the death of a child. The pain and guilt became chronic, and she knew that she would never again be Marilé, the woman she had been until that moment. Her anguish drowned her and that is why she escaped, leaving behind her once perfect life, her family, her friends… her child. And although she abandoned all this and tried to restart her life from scratch, she would be damaged forever. She tells us her story through her “logbook”, her life before and her life now.
Now she is Mary Lohan, and she chooses to take refuge in the United States where she is a Spanish teacher. She is lonely after the death of her new American husband.
For work-related reasons, Mary has agreed to return to Argentina after so many years. Her greatest fear is that someone will recognize her, that someone will associate her with her past and judge her, but at the same time she cannot deny that she wants to reunite with her son Federico. He is now all grown up: he works as a teacher in a private school, is married, and even has a daughter of his own. However, this time she is not the same person she was years ago, nor is her appearance, and she does not know if her confession will give her a chance to become close to her son again or do just the opposite.
Perhaps her return is nothing more than a small and unavoidable chance to put her life back together and think – for the first time in many years – about her future. Mary Lohan decides to face her past to reencounter that which she had never been able to forget, despite the reaction this may cause.
RELEVANT DATA: A Stroke of Luck touches on issues such as guilt and the ability to forgive oneself for mistakes made, motherhood and the different ways people have to deal with adverse situations.
Claudia Piñeiro, widely known as The Lady of the Noir Novel, is one of the most acclaimed Latin-American literary voices. She is the third most translated Argentinian author, right after Borges and Cortázar, and one of the most adapted Spanish-speaking authors for film and TV today.
Among her many awards are the Clarín Award, the LiBeraturpreis, the Pléyade Award, the Latin American Award for Children’s and Young People’s Literature, the ACE Award, the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Award and the Pepe Carvalho Award. She was also a finalist for the Planeta Argentina Award and the La Sonrisa Vertical Award, as well as having been selected in the Edebé Publishing Contest.
What the critics have said:
“Claudia Piñeiro transmits feelings in every word, the way of telling this novel is fundamentally through feelings, so deep and so clearly told that you cannot help but live them too.” Goodreads
“A Stroke of Luck is an intense, emotional, sensitive, intriguing and tremendously addictive book that at certain moments leaves you with a lump in your throat. A story of life, pain, redemption, and guilt”. Adivina quién lee (literary blog)
AUDIOVISUAL POTENTIAL: TV Series, Miniseries, Film, TV Movie.
LANGUAGES AVAILABLE: Spanish, English, Portuguese, Italian, Hebrew, Dutch, German, French, Bulgarian, Polish.
