In her usual, incisive prose, Carvalho returns to what really threatens us, not the sea or witchcraft or a lion with watchful eyes, but people and time. She has visions of an empty future of machines and no more art, a vision that looks more and more prophetic. And she tangles with aging, all the regrets over things people wanted but her characters weren't capable of, or didn't want to, give. And How Have You Been? reckons with what it means to be human over a lifetime, the small triumphs that recede into the mist of memory, the losses that stay razor-sharp. And always, Carvalho writes with unexpected candour and without apologies.