num_pages: 134
description: [A] translucent novel of passion illusion and social class....slyly witty and luminous.Francine Prose in O The Oprah MagazineDuring working hours Mario is a dutiful bureaucrat scrupulously earning his paycheck as an employee of the provincial Spanish town where he lives. But when he walks through the door of his apartment he is transformed into the impassioned lover of Blanca the beautiful inscrutable wife he saved from the brink of personal crisis. For the love of Blanca Mario eats sushi and carpaccio nods in feigned understanding at experimental films sits patiently through long conversations with her avant-garde friends and conceals his disgust at shocking art exhibits.Then little by little a strange and ominous threat begins to weigh on the marriage.How can love survive its own disappearance? The desperate answer that Antonio Muoz Molina proposes in this short circular novella is a model of literary strategy and style a splendid homage to Flaubert.
language: English
title: In Her Absence: A Novel
publisher: Other Press