The following version of the novel was used to create this study guide: Aira, César. The Divorce. New Directions, June 1, 2021.

In the novella The Divorce by César Aira, Aira plays with the malleability of time and space as he tells stories connected to a variety of chance meetings. Enrique has just been doused with water, supposedly from the awing of a cafe, when he notices a girl with whom he escaped from a fire at school. Enrique is later surprised to recognize his mother among the diners at that cafe.

Kent, the narrator of the novel, decides to escape the turmoil of his recent divorce with a vacation in Buenos Aires. He is talking to Leticia, a filmmaker, when a man walking a bike down the street is suddenly doused with water that appears to have come from the awning of the cafe where Kent and Leticia are eating.

Leticia and Kent recognize one another because they escaped together from a fire at the boarding school they attended. The story of their escape from the school includes an account of them running through the huge building looking for an exit until they find a scale model of the school. They take cover inside this model where they follow the same path in an attempt to escape that they did in the real school.

A moment after Enrique recognizes Leticia, he also recognizes Kent as one of the boarders at his guest house. The theme of Enrique’s guest house is evolution, a topic Enrique and some of his college students were once interested in after they read a book by Charles Darwin. Jusepe, who had no interest in evolution, joined the club. After that, the members never talked about evolution again.

Enrique had told Kent that Jusepe was given by his parents to a man who claimed to be a sculptor. The man actually abused Jusepe and never taught him any skills because he was always drunk. Enrique says that Jusepe's family, the one before he was given to the sculptor, was required to take a turn entertaining Khrisna on Sunday afternoons. One day Khrisna tricked Jusepe. Jusepe’s father became angry with Jusepe instead of Khrisna for the trick.

Enrique is next surprised to see his mother also eating at the cafe. He has not seen her in months. The reader learns that she was shot five times and left for dead by the mafia. Despite her injuries, she survived, but was unable to tell anyone anything about the shooter after she recovered.

Enrique’s mother had been a businesswoman before she was married and had Enrique. She was young when her family’s medical firm was raided because of mismanagement, but she was able to take over the firm and run it successfully because she carefully followed a manual that had been left for her.

Later after the business had become defunct, several men from the business approached Enrique’s mother about the manual. However, she was unable to tell them what the book looked like or even where she had last seen it. The men at first concluded the book never existed, and then decided that it was a symbol of all the books in the universe.

Enrique tells Kent the story of a beautiful young woman with whom he has fallen in love. They spent several months of the summer getting to know one another before Enrique professed his love. The woman said she loved him as well. However, she claimed that she was a sort of "god" who had come to ensure that the people of Buenos Aires had sufficient ice. She warned Enrique that if he tried to embrace her that she would be destroyed. Enrique embraces the woman anyway and is drenched with water, not from the awning, but by the woman when she melts in his arms.