The Right Intention
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
Kirkus Best Books of 2018
"Barba is a master of the novella . . . A gorgeous, fully realized collection."—Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
Nothing is simple for the men and women in Andrés Barba's stories. As they go about their lives, they are each tested by a single, destructive obsession. A runner puts his marriage at risk while training for a marathon; a teenager can no longer stand the sight of meat following her parents' divorce; a man suddenly fixates on the age difference between him and his younger male lover. In four tightly wound novellas, Andrés Barba establishes himself as a master of the form.
Andrés Barba is the one the most lauded contemporary Spanish writers. He is the author of twelve books, including August, October and Rain Over Madrid. In addition to literary fiction, he has written essays, poems, books of photography, and translations of Thomas De Quincey and Herman Melville. His books have been translated into ten languages.
Lisa Dillman won the 2016 Best Translated Book Award for her translation of Yuri Herrera's Signs Preceding the End of the World. She translates from Spanish and Catalan and teaches in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Emory University.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The four novellas in Barba's wonderful and intense new collection (following Such Small Hands) share a melancholy sensibility and a yearning, born of persistent loneliness. In "Nocturne," a 56-year-old man answers a provocative personal ad "I'm so alone. Roberto." and in short order is surprised to find himself in an intimate relationship with a much younger man. It's something he never imagined could happen, both less and more than he wants. In "Debilitation," the seemingly aloof Sara descends into anorexia and mental illness, observing her life as much as living it. The narrative has a cool economy that chills with its disaffected illusion of control. In "Marathon," a runner jeopardizes his relationship with his new wife because of his obsession with an upcoming race. Cracks appear almost immediately and widen as his training intensifies. The involvement of the runner's benevolent new friend Ernesto complicates things even more. In "Descent," the delicate balance among a group of siblings, and among their own immediate families, is progressively shifted when elderly Mama suffers a fall, breaking her hip in two places. As Mama incrementally edges towards death, each interaction changes larger family affinities. Barba's focus on a diverse cast of characters (gay and straight, women and men, old and young) in each novella gives the collection a capacious feel, memorably capturing the many, varied subtleties of human dynamics.
