Review
Marias...remains almost unknown in America. What are we waiting for? -- Wendy Lesser
Frédéric Vitoux, Nouvel Observateur
‘...enormous cunning and a fiendish degree of patience. It threads together the elements of psychological analysis with the precision of a miniaturist’
Book Description
'It has achieved the status of a manifesto: it is one of those unusual books breaks new ground' Le Monde
Product Description
Juan knows little about his widowed father Ranz, a man with a troubled past; if he has been told no lies, that is because he has asked no questions. All he does know is that before marrying Juan's mother, Ranz was married to her elder sister and she had committed suicide. The unspoken dialogue between father and son, however, is to become a spelling out of the horrifying truth once Juan has been married for a year to Luisa, and the bride turns discreet confessor to the burdened old man. What gradually emerges into the cold light of day is a repetition of scenes already witnessed by Juan in the course of his travels - of a married man blackmailed by his mistress in a Havana hotel, of a woman in New York pursuing a sequence of shabby lovers through the lonely-hearts columns. With remarkable skill and delicacy Javier Mar-as builds up his colours to produce a startling picture of two generations, two marriages, and of the secret commerce between spouses that rests on the gossamer-thin threads of an unspoken accord. (20021018)
About the Author
Javier Marias was born in Madrid in 1951 and published his first novel at the age of nineteen. In addition to seven other novels (which have won him the Herralde de Novela and the Ciudad de Barcelona prizes, and the Spanish Critics' Award, and some of which have been translated into several languages) he has written a volume of short stories and a collection of essays. He is also a highly practised translator into Spanish of English authors, including Conrad, Stevenson, Hardy, and Laurence Sterne. He has held academic posts in Spain, the United States (where he was visiting professor at Wellesley College) and in Britain, as Lecturer in Spanish Literature at Oxford University. (20021018)
