Juliana Leite - Exemplary Humans

After excellent discussions on the superbly depressing subject of exploitative psych care in our money-loving society we were hungry for potentially formative stuff.

Juliana Leite's ambitious Brazilian novel, Exemplary Humans, about the quirks of memory and the delights and horror of aging, is probably not only ambitious but also an awesome memento mori poke, a carpe diem reminder and a lesson in acceptance.

Goodreads sells the book (when it finally loads in my browser without errors) as follows:
``Juliana Leite makes her English-language debut with a novel about one woman’s past and all of our futures
Ever since the unnamed threat took over, 100-year-old Natalia has been stuck inside her Rio de Janeiro apartment, alone. Well, not entirely alone—her loved ones may be gone but they never really left her, plus she’s pretty sure there’s a spy watching her every move through the window.
As she waits for the daily call from her daughter who lives halfway across the world, the old woman revisits scenes from her life. There’s her husband Vicente, who obsessively erased maps of Brazil; her best friend Sarah, the cookie seller; Jorge, who gave tarot readings for both humans and birds; and the comrades who joined her in resisting Brazil’s dictatorship, at least until they were forced into hiding. Exemplary Humans is an ambitious novel about the quirks of memory and the delights and horror of aging.
“Masterful, crystalline prose… Leite’s novel is one to read and reread and grow old with.” —Bruna Dantas Lobato, author of Blue Light Hours
“Juliana Leite writes about death and old age with the exuberance of a child who’s new to life.”—José Eduardo Agualusa, author of The Living and the Rest
“Between the intimate and the social, full of the vastness of everyday life. As delicate as it is poignant, as poetic as it’s concrete, Exemplary Humans is a rare literary feat.”—Stênio Gardel, author of The Words That Remain´´

The paperback edition, published by Two Lines Press, is 315 pages, while the audiobook, published by Audible Studios, is eight hours and eighteen minutes.