The Man with No Borders by Richard C. Morais: book review

The Man with No Borders (2019) is set in Zurich, Switzerland, from the 1970s to the present day, with a retrospective of the author’s childhood in Ribadesella, Spain, in the 1950s.

José María Álvarez is a Spanish banker living in Switzerland with his American wife Lisa when his failing health is diagnosed. The day of reckoning will soon arrive, and his three sons—Sam, John, and Rob—come to his side. José must put his house and legacy in order before his death.

José narrates his own end-of-life days, his thougths of the future for his wife and sons, his current feelings, and his hallucinations of the past. His thinks back to his rural childhood spent fishing with his father, uncle Augustin, and younger brother Juan. He remembers the ‘most honest’ conversation he ever had with his mother when he was eighteen years old.

When his sons arrive, José has regrets, and tries to heal past wounds, and expose past secrets. He seeks forgiveness.

This is a novel about a banker who learns how to keep family secrets—the family secrets of his clients and the his own family secrets.

The Man with No Borders is a well-told family saga. It will keep reader’s interested until the end, although I found the conclusion too neatly wrapped up, with all strings and threads tied tight. I prefer a little mystery to endings so that I can conjure up what may have been.

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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of: Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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