In Her Absence

April 16, 2007
Propelled by an ironic sense of foreboding, this clever, circular account of the unraveling of a strained marriage follows Mario, a Spanish civil servant who thrives on routine, after he becomes convinced his wife, Blanca, has deserted him and left in her place an impostor. Mario blames himself for not paying closer attention to his beloved in happier times, but his more pointed regret centers around Lluís Onésimo, a "villainous multimedia artist" whose arrival in their small city of Jaén, Mario believes, doomed his marriage. Blanca, a longtime art lover, became fixated on Lluís and his art, the latest in a long line of Blanca's artists du jour. Indeed, Blanca's many small disappointments—a missed Frida Kahlo exhibition in Madrid, Mario's crude table manners, her boredom with mundane surroundings that she claims only "mental bureaucrats" could tolerate—have their roots in their divergent backgrounds—he grew up poor and has no use for the art scene; she comes from a background of privilege. In spare, well-crafted prose and through subtle suggestions, Molina delivers a taut investigation of romantic attachment that draws readers into an eerie spiral of suspicion where the line between questionable perceptions and reality is never quite clear.

July 1, 2007
This is a simple storyMario and Blanca are married opposites. She's from the art community, while his response to art is physical: Antoni Tà pies "inspired a mixture of weary sorrow and heartburn." Though Mario's devotion to someone he considers his superior can lead nowhere but where it doesan obsessive panic that Blanca is leaving himMolina is deft in building the anxiety and bookends the novel with a tumbling, lyrical surrealism usually found in shorter pieces. Two of Molina's novels have won his native Spain's Premio Nacional de Literatura, and the English translation of "Sepharad" won the 2004 PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize. He has been well served by his current translator, who paraphrases writer Colm Toibí n when she comments, "The world's richest language, in economic termsEnglishis also one of its most impoverished when it comes to taking in the literary wealth that exists beyond it." This well-written and evocative story is a good way to expand your library's collection of international writers.Kristin Thiel, Portland, OR

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.