In the noted author's last novel, Carr, down on his luck after his wife leaves, takes a job in the port of Santa María and, finding that it is a cover for drug smugglers, realizes that he has nothing to do but record his sentiments in a diary.
La vida breve is the novel that introduces Santa Maria, the mythical land in Onettian narrative. Brausens wife was crippled after a complicated surgery. To make up for the void left by her forgotten caresses, he creates stories. He dreams up Santa Maria and the life of Doctor Diaz Grey. He listens to a conversation between a man and a woman, happening on the other side of a wall, he imagines their gestures, their feelings. He wants to break the barriers of imagination, he wants to become another.