This Is Not Happening

A striking, revealing account by the comedian Carmen Romero on the suicide of her brother Miguel and her subsequent mourning

It’s June 2016, and Carmen Romero’s world collapses. Miguel -her brother, only twenty-six years old, a soldier by profession- takes his own life by jumping out the window of the family home while they are watching The Godfather together. Everything happens very fast; so fast that things that made sense until then stop making sense. Carmen thinks she’s in a movie: police, neighbors, doctors, ambulances and even her mother and sister are all involved in shooting of a film in which nobody yells: “Cut!”. So begins the story of humorist Carmen Romero, who, after her brother’s suicide, goes into a state of shock. To reconnect with herself, Carmen begins to explore the nature of sadness until, in an unexpected burst, humor appears. Only then does she understand that the only way to hold on to life is to face death from a position as far from taboos, silence and fear as possible.