Institut Ramon LLull

In November 1973, an American military plane crash-landed on the black sand of Solheimasandur Beach in southern Iceland, yet everyone on board survived. Nearly fifty years later, a recently widowed woman—who refers to what happened only as “All that”—contacts the pilot, who is now in his seventies. He consents to tell her his story on one condition: that she doest not fictionalize it. Her writing journey leads her to travel to the landing site, finding the path to her survival in the experiences of others, because “every accident seems exceptional when it’s happening to you.”

Weaving the pilot’s story told in his own words with the protagonist’s introspective firstperson account of her struggles with loss, and the chronicle of her four-day trip to Iceland, Piquer leads us on an intimate journey that we all must one day face. The pilot’s directive sets the tone for her own unvarnished truth-telling. How can we come out on the other side of grief and become survivors? How can we find the metaphor that leads us out of the darkness?