The Confessions of Señora Francesca Navarro and Other Stories - Softcover

Petesch, Natalie L. M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0804010773 ISBN 13: 9780804010771

Publisher: Swallow Press, 2005

Synopsis

\u201cMemory, of course, is sometimes like a bucking horse, sometimes a runaway one, and one must control the reins until finally it stops, snorting with exhausted relief,\u201d writes Natalie L. M. Petesch in her haunting new collection, The Confessions of Se\u00f1ora Francesca Navarro and Other Stories. Petesch immerses readers in the lives of people caught up in the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War, which left more than five hundred thousand dead. She captures the hand-to-mouth existence on the streets of Madrid of two war orphans; an old soldier's memories of a fallen militiawoman; the dilemma of Franco's laundress as she seeks to duplicate a stolen religious icon she finds in his home; and a man's struggle to find his bride among thousands of Republican refugees waiting for ships to evacuate them before Franco's Fascists arrive to kill them. In the title novella, an elderly woman describes to her granddaughter how the families of Franco's officers fighting against Republican militiamen endured hunger, filth, and danger in an underground fortress. Petesch conveys the humiliating details of war through the sensibility of a cultured woman who recalls only too vividly latrines made of laundry tubs, the smell of unwashed humans, and the stench of death. Brilliant in its imaginative power and heartbreaking in its access to the bottomless well of human tears, The Confessions of Se\u00f1ora Francesca Navarro and Other Stories is the work of a mature artist able to convey a particular world so vividly that we know these people as our own.

About this title

Review:

"In The Confessions of Senora Francesca Navarro and Other Stories, Natalie Petesch has once again lent her passionate heart and passionate prose to stories and characters that live with heartbreaking honesty and dignity. These people and the events of their lives remain with me long after I put aside the pages where I met them."

"In The Confessions of Senora Francesca Navarro and Other Stories, Natalie Petesch has once again lent her passionate heart and passionate prose to stories and characters that live with heartbreaking honesty and dignity. These people and the events of their lives remain with me long after I put aside the pages where I met them."
Lewis Nordan, author of "Wolf Whistle" and "The Sharpshooter Blues""

Synopsis:

Petesch immerses readers in the lives of people caught up in the 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War, which left 500,000 dead. In the title novella, Petesch conveys the humiliating details of war through the sensibility of a cultured woman as families endure hunger, filth, darkness, and danger in an underground fortress. Brilliant in its imaginative power, and heartbreaking in its access to the bottomless well of human tears, this is a deeply moving work by a mature artist able to convey a particular world so vividly that we can know these people as our own.

About this edition

• Publisher: Swallow Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0804010773
• ISBN 13: 9780804010771
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192