Fresh, Green Life

"[A] combination of highbrow references and deadpan comedy clicks resonantly throughout the book, and admirers of Thomas Bernhard’s work will find plenty to savor here. The gulf between the narrator’s intellectual ideals and lived reality . . . gives this short novel plenty of energy. Castillo navigates an emotionally fraught narrative with empathy and dry humor." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Castillo’s hypnotic, funny, and wonderfully surprising novel, an exemplary example of autofiction, wraps up the reader and takes them on a fascinating journey." —Booklist

"Exposing the thin lines between discipline and vanity, rigor and pretension, discourse and isolation, Fresh, Green Life is a surreal, compulsively readable portrait of a disenchanted scholar. Castillo writes with humor and humility, masterfully endearing his fictional counterpart to the reader as his hero seeks the 'delicious nonsense' of his school days and a reason to break his yearlong vow of silence. Fresh, Green Life is a disarming, absorbing, and singular novel." —Emily Adrian, author of ​​​​​​​Seduction Theory