The House of the Spirits

by Isabel Allende

Here the madness was divided up equally, and there was nothing left over for us to have our own lunatic.”

With a family like mine, I don’t need to invent much. Most of my relatives had a touch of madness; we were known to be “original”, which is to say that we didn’t quite fit into the usual mold. Today, some of my relatives would be certified nutcases, but in Chile in the 40s and 50s they were absorbed into the general weirdness of our clan. One of them was the guy who told the story of the hens and the fox. He spent his life pedaling to nowhere on a fixed bike. His sister wanted to be a nun but was rejected in every convent where she applied, so she ended up dressed like a bishop saying mass and praying the rosary in the red district of Santiago to save the souls of the sinners. A great uncle took off his clothes in the financial district to give them to a homeless person and walked in his underwear, with a top hat and his silver cane, to the Congress. He was a senator. Etc. I could go on forever, but you get the idea. These anecdotes are in the house of the spirits.