A Farewell To Gabo And Mercedes: A Son's Memoir of Gabriel García Márquez and Mercedes Barcha

"In March 2014, Gabriel García Márquez, one of the most internationally beloved writers of the 20th century, came down with a cold. He was almost 87 years old, and battling dementia. 'I don't think we'll get out of this one,' Mercedes Barcha, his wife of over fifty years, told Rodrigo, their son. As reality begins to sink in, Rodrigo asks himself, 'Is this how the end begins?' Instead of waiting for an answer, Rodrigo starts to write about the beginning of the end. The resulting pages became A Farewell to Gabo and Mercedes -- an intimate and honest account of the last days of a literary genius's life, written by an exceptional witness. Through Rodrigo's measured prose, we are not only reminded of an icon's mortality, but his remarkable humanity. We see the great writer-a master at creating the dramatic arc of an entire life on the page-become a tragic yet charming character of his own right as he and his family come to terms with the end. With A Farewell to Gabo and Mercedes, Rodrigo has written not a novel, but a stunning work of reportage. The minute and major snapshots captured-Rodrigo and his brother's discomfort around the public interest in their father's state, Mercedes' reluctant deference to Gabriel's knowing aides, and Gabriel's wry humor at a vulnerable time, when his lucidity is waning-form a diary, distilled by distance and time, but invigorated by introspection.