Written in 1950, "A Brief Life" is the first novel to feature Onetti's mythical town of Santa Maria. His protagonist Brausen eavesdrops on the conversation of his neighbours, a husband and wife, imagining their gestures, their expressions.Brausen lives with his wife, who has undergone major surgery after being diagnosed with breast cancer. To compensate for this physical void which stalls their caresses, Brausen imagines stories: of Santa Maria, and of a doctor named Diaz Grey.But he not only wishes to imagine himself as someone else, he also seeks release from himself and from the world he knows. He leads many lives, some real and some fantastic, in order to experience a moment of psychic weightlessness - a 'brief life'.