Reviews
In a small seaside suburb two strangers arrive - Juan Olmedo, accompanied by his mentally disabled brother and his young niece, and Sara Gomez, an enigmatic woman in her fifties. Both have their reasons for fleeing the city. Sara's father had returned from the Civil war a broken man, unable to support his family. In desperation, her mother was forced to give up the young baby to her childless employer. Growing up amidst a background that would never truly be her own, Sara was forever caught between her love of the good life and her feelings of duty towards a family and a poverty that repelled her. Now Sara has more money than she had ever dreamed, but her freedom has come at a price.Juan also has his reasons for starting a new life. A doctor in the local ER unit, he is haunted by a tragedy in his family's past and by a secret sexual obsession that threatens the fragile equilibrium he has found in his new home.Like the capricious winds that dominate the coast, bringing chaos or clemency in their wake, the lives of these two people are pitched from fortune to adversity by forces beyond their command.
"Most of this story is set in the past, as the events of the present are refracted through continual flashbacks of Juan and Sara's earlier lives - lives twinned in adversity. As the novel zigzags chronologically between its disparate episodes, the outlines of the new arrivals are steadily filled in with intense psychological detail... the dexterity with which Grandes is able to unpick psychological states makes for a convincing and moving book."
THE TIMES
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