A simultaneous translator, recently married to another simultaneous translator, uses the growing friendship between his wife and his father to unravel the mystery behind a suicide that took place before he was born. It is none of these. The experience of reading him is cumulative. Public figures, too, put in an appearance, though Franco is not always called Franco, and Margaret Thatcher may simply be identified as a female British leader. The events take place mainly in Madrid, but London, Oxford, Havana, Venice and New York are also knowledgeably invoked.
Time is an active presence, a nearly tangible entity.
Our narrator learns that Ranz, before being married to his mother, was briefly married to her older sister, a young woman who killed herself soon after the wedding. It is this death, in other words, that gave rise to the narrator's own life. He is intimately involved in the events he describes, and he is also intimately involved with us, his readers. Dark Back of Time'' to be completely computerless, and for some reason I believe him. But the uncertainty is nonetheless tantalizing.