The Bitter Taste of Time
A Novel
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A richly layered and evocative novel about the lives and loves of a family of remarkable Spanish women
Set in northern Spain from 1920 to the present, The Bitter Taste of Time is the compelling story of the Encarna women, whose lives are both tragic and beautiful. After the death of her husband, the family's gorgeous and imposing matriarch, Maria Encarna, turns her granite house into a pensión, opening it up to strangers with colorful stories and dark pasts. There she lives with her two unmarried sisters, her two daughters, and her granddaughter.
Through the Spanish Civil War, a dictatorship, and the early years of a new democracy, the Encarnas become the wealthiest family in town. Yet despite their success and tenacity, tragedy comes calling, usually in the form of a man—and almost always on a Friday.
By turns funny and moving, The Bitter Taste of Time is a thoroughly entertaining read.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Spanning from 1920 to 1997, Gonzalez's second novel follows five generations of a wealthy family in a small Galician town as their fortunes rise and fall with Spain's changing political climate. The six Encarna women, ruled by the harsh and beautiful Mar a, run a successful hotel in Canteira, a picturesque town "long forgotten by the central powers of Spain." As one of the town's wealthiest families whose men either die young or otherwise leave quickly, the Encarnas are the object of much gossip in the community. From jovial Cecilia to austere Carmen, kind Matilde, withdrawn Asunci n and ambitious Gloria, the women change little as the country around them is engulfed in war and political upheaval, and the novel lacks a central narrative as the family bounces from one crisis to another. While Gonzalez's descriptions of Canteira's locals and the town's slow slide into modernity can be charming and whimsical, the novel's engaging beginning peters out as the minidramas that follow fail to break out of a repetitive cycle of poor choices in men and family squabbling.
