Distinguished and terrible characters, echoes of childhood, looks of yearning and of disgust at life run through 'Estancos del Chiado', a volume that brings together the best stories by the Barcelona author Fernando Clemot, all written before 2005. Disappointment and irony go hand in hand in all the stories here, in a less than idyllic vision of a time that, in a journey to the incorruptible memories that refuse to be sweetened or let their most traumatic recollections be erased, was aware that true greatness lies in the fall, if by this we mean a self-aware starting point from which to begin afresh. The book sheds light on every sphere of human existence, but above on memory, in a multitude of different perspectives grouped into three great thematic blocks: Mythologies, The garden of memory, and Twilights.