description: Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780811215053Javier Marías's A Heart So White chronicles with unnerving insistence the relentless power of the past. Juan knows little of the interior life of his father Ranz; but when Juan marries, he begins to consider the past anew, and begins to ponder what he doesn't really want to know. Secrecy—its possible convenience, its price, and even its civility—hovers throughout the novel. A Heart So White becomes a sort of anti-detective story of human nature. Intrigue; the sins of the father; the fraudulent and the genuine; marriage and strange repetitions of violence: Marías elegantly sends shafts of inquisitory light into the shadows and on to the costs of ambivalence. ("My hands are of your colour; but I shame/To wear a heart so white"—Shakespeare's Macbeth.)
language: English
title: A Heart So White
titlecomplete: A Heart So White
characters: Professor Villalobos, Luisa, Guillermo, Juan Ranz, Custardoy, Ranz, Teresa, Berta, Miriam
genres: 20th Century, Literature, Classics, Literary Fiction, Modern Classics, Novels, Spain, Spanish Literature, Fiction, Contemporary
ratings_count: 13609
places: New York City, New York, Havana, Madrid
awards: awardedAt: 694252800000
name: Premio de la Crítica de Narrativa Castellana, awardedAt: 852105600000
name: Dublin Literary Award
publisher: New Directions