Still without a name

Alentejo, Portugal, 1990’s. Jaquim is an orphan. Zé wouldn’t mind being one as well. Inseparable friends since elementary school, they meet again after four years apart. Jaquim left the small Vila Velha to be with his mother during her cancer treatments in Lisbon. After her death, Jaquim returns in the hope of finally finding some answers about his father’s suicide. Zé has resigned himself to work in the family’s butcher shop. Prisoner of a small life, the return of his friend feels like his only hope for change. The reunion of the two, once children, now adults, awakens secrets and memories, not only between them but also in those around them: Menina Ivone, the spinster godmother of both boys, who lives her life through the lives of others; Manel the butcher, an angry man who lost his beauty and a forbidden love; and Idália, a housewife with a secret buried in her backyard. Among these lives, anchored in baptisms, weddings and funerals, wanders a dog named dog, who explains to the reader how names prevent things from being what they are. Or what they can be.