Aside from My Heart, All Is Well

His biggest book since Oblivion, H?ctor Abad’s humane voice buoys the spirit and reminds us of the value of human connection and the power of art.

“Mr. Abad’s prose is elastic and alive . . . [His writing] is extravagantly big-hearted.”– Dwight Garner on Oblivion, The New York Times

Luis Cord?ba, also known as Gordo, leads an unconventional life. His vocation as a priest has not stopped him from becoming a film critic, teacher, opera enthusiast, and passionate nibbler of chocolate and pepperoni. He lives in his childhood home in downtown Medell?n with another priest, Aurelio S?nchez, or Lelo, among a slew of pets (war-mongering fish, a toucan, and parakeets aren’t the half of it). It is Lelo who shades in these details, writing across time to the day in 1996 when life changed. At fifty, Gordo learns he needs a heart transplant. He is forbidden from climbing stairs, and so he moves into a different neighborhood with a friend, her housekeeper, and their children. With the briskness of sunshine drying out wet clothes, and air rushing through and renewing old places, Lelo reflects on Gordo’s new era of thinking and feeling.

Luis Cord?ba is inspired by the life of the priest and film critic Luis Alberto Alvarez, a friend of H?ctor Abad’s, and an important figure in Colombian cultural spheres. To keep Aside from My Heart, All is Well from becoming a biography, Abad drew on a range of sources to conjure up Cord?ba, a person who both is and is not Alberto Alvarez.

Author: Héctor Abad
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Archipelago Books
Published: 04/21/2026
Pages: 430
Weight: 0.81lbs
ISBN: 9781962770590
Language: English