In Her Absence

"Part mystery, part comedy of manners. . . . The Flaubert ofMadame Bovaryand the Henry James ofThe Turn of the Screwmeet in the unresolved enigma ofIn Her Absence." --Le Point During 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 Munoz Molina proposes in this short, circular novella is a model of literary strategy and style, a splendid homage to Flaubert.

Antonio Munoz Molina was director of the Cervantes Institute from 2004 to 2006.