From Publishers Weekly
Exile and loss are the principal subjects of these 12 stories from the author of Love in the Time of Cholera , which capture with lyrical precision the emotions of disorientation and fear, coupled with a sense of new possibility, experienced by Latin Americans in Europe. Their pilgrimages seldom achieve their goals: the deposed politician in " Bon Voyage , Mister President" sells all his personal belongings to have an operation in Geneva that doesn't alleviate his pain; the devoted father who brings the miraculously intact remains of his seven-year-old daughter to Rome in "The Saint" can't get an audience with the Pope; a particularly chilling tale, "I Only Came to Use the Phone," shows a woman accidentally taken to an insane asylum who can't get out even after she contacts her husband in Barcelona. A note of hard-won hope enters in stories like "Maria dos Prazeres," which portrays an elderly prostitute selecting her burial site, but the mood darkens again as the collection closes with "Tramontania," "Miss Forbes's Summer of Happiness," "Light Is Like Water" and "The Trail of Your Blood in the Snow," tales of suicide, murder, accidental death and tragically missed communications. Lovely prose and some poignant insights contribute to a collection that pleases in its parts but fails to strike a lasting note. But even a minor effort from Garcia Marquez is a standard toward which other writers aspire. 75,000 first printing; BOMC alternate.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
The Nobel prize-winning author Garcia Marquez has collected a dozen of his stories about Latin Americans in Europe, most of which, although magical, end on an unsettling note. Thus, an expatriate ex-president is recognized by an ambulance driver bent on exploitation; a man travels from Colombia to Rome with a cello case to see the pope; a woman with car trouble finds herself trapped in a mental institution; a prostitute plans her funeral. The plots are simple, but the character study and use of language is incisive. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/93.
- Ann Irvine, Montgomery Cty. P.L., Md.Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
de Gabriel Garcia Marquez
de Gabriel Garcia Marquez
de Marquez G Garcia
