The Error of the Moon (El error de la luna)

A teenager obsessed with the mysterious portrait of her deceased aunt begins an investigation that uncovers family secrets, passions, and tragedies. An intimate drama with touches of melodrama, from the renowned writer Héctor Aguilar Camín.

Leonor Gonzalbo is a seventeen-year-old girl who lives with her grandparents in a house in Mexico City filled with silence and unresolved family wounds. Since childhood, she has been obsessed with the portrait of her aunt Mariana, who died years earlier under circumstances that were never fully clarified. Their physical resemblance unsettles everyone, and Leonor feels compelled to understand who Mariana was and why she died.

Through interviews with those who knew her—her aunt Cordelia, her friend Carmen Ramos, and her colleague Ángel Romano—Leonor reconstructs Mariana’s life: a brilliant, passionate, and free-spirited young woman who had an intense relationship with the writer Lucas Carrasco. Their love story was as radiant as it was destructive. In a provocative impulse, Mariana kissed another man in front of Lucas, and that betrayal marked the beginning of the end. He withdrew, and she fell into a spiral of anorexia, isolation, and despair. Although they tried to reconnect, their bond unraveled amid misunderstandings, pride, and silence. Ultimately, Mariana died from an embolism caused by her physical and emotional deterioration.

While investigating, Leonor experiences her own sexual awakening with Rafael Liévano, who becomes her first love and introduces her to adulthood. However, her true desire is directed toward Lucas, whom she meets to learn more about Mariana. The attraction between them becomes ambiguous and dangerous: Leonor tries to seduce him, attempting to repeat Mariana’s story, but Lucas rejects her. Tension with her family erupts when they discover her obsession, and her grandmother finally reveals the truth: Mariana was nearly four months pregnant when she died. The family discovered it too late and hesitated too long over whether to terminate the pregnancy, given the risk to Mariana’s life, already weakened by anorexia and depression. The child was a boy, which deeply affected the grandfather, who had previously lost another son with a different woman. In the end, they failed to decide in time, and Mariana suffered a fall that caused a miscarriage and fatal hemorrhage. The child was most likely conceived during her final night with Lucas.

In an emotional final encounter, Leonor tells Lucas that Mariana died from complications of a late-term miscarriage. Moved, he confesses that he felt like her widower and that the child they lost was “the child of the moon,” born from a strange and symbolic night. Both acknowledge their share of guilt: he for abandoning Mariana, and Leonor for her desire to understand a past that belonged to her deceased aunt, not to her.

In the epilogue, Leonor has lived, loved, become a mother, and divorced. At a party hosted by Lucas, she reunites with Rafael. Mature and free, she allows herself to get lost with him—not as an escape, but as an act of choosing to live without fear. In doing so, she breaks away from the tragic destiny that once drew her in and closes the cycle that bound her to Mariana.

RELEVANT INFORMATION: Héctor Aguilar Camín is a Mexican journalist, writer, novelist, historian, and political analyst. He is the recipient of the Mazatlán Prize for Literature.

The Error of the Moon is a dramatic novel with elements of melodrama, coming-of-age, and mystery. It reflects on desire, guilt, identity, and the weight of family legacies, and has strong potential as a series or film, particularly due to its atmosphere of mystery, its interplay between past and present, the intensity of its characters, and the emotionally charged relationships between them. Leonor’s development offers a powerful narrative arc that is highly compelling for the screen.

AUDIOVISUAL POTENTIAL: TV Series, Miniseries, Film, TV Film.

AVAILABLE LANGUAGES: Spanish, German.