Berta Isla
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4.7 • 3 Ratings
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
A thrilling new literary offering from the acclaimed author of The Infatuations andA Heart So White
'For a while, she wasn't sure that her husband was her husband. Sometimes she thought he was, and sometimes not...'
Berta Isla and Tomás Nevinson meet in Madrid. They are both very young and quickly decide to spend their lives together - never suspecting that they will grow to be total strangers, both living living under the shadow of disappearances.
Tomás, half-Spanish and half-English, has an extraordinary gift for languages and accents. Leaving Berta to study at Oxford, he catches the interest of a certain government agency, and its mysterious agent, Bertram Tupra. Tomás is determined to evade the agent's attentions but his fate is sealed by a series of escalating events that will affect the rest of his life - and that of his beloved Berta. Finishing his time at Oxford, he returns to Madrid to marry her, already knowing the life they planned has been lost forever.
Darkly gripping, Berta Isla is a story about a relationship condemned to secrecy and concealment, to pretence and conjecture, to resentment mingled with loyalty. With meticulous insight and understanding of the human soul, Marías examines the urge to change our destiny, and the hopeless exiles we bring upon ourselves.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Mar as (Thus Bad Begins) transforms a spy thriller into an eloquent depiction of those left behind at home in this rich novel. Popular, beautiful Berta Isla decides she will marry Tom s Nevinson, a half-Spanish, half-British classmate with a preternatural ability to learn languages, while they are students together in mid-1960s Madrid. During his studies at Oxford, Tom s is recruited by a professor to use his abilities with languages and accents to serve as an infiltrator for the British Secret Intelligence Service. He demurs, until he is accused of murdering his British lover and needs help evading the charge. Mar as toggles to Berta as a narrator for Tom s's return to Spain, their marriage in 1974, and his cover job for the British Embassy. Berta struggles to cope with her husband's long, mysterious absences and forces a confession about his real job after a terrifying threat on their young son's life. Tom s offers scant details of his work, which only partially satisfies Berta, who spars with him. When he leaves on assignment just before the start of the Falklands War in 1982, Berta's worries compound as his time away stretches into months and then years. Mar as switches back to a third-person narrator for the gut-punching conclusion that explains what happened to Tom s. The espionage premise is initially enticing, but the real draw is the depth of Mar as's characterization. This weighty novel rewards readers with the patience for its deliberate dissection of a marriage.
