Light Comedy,A - Softcover

Mendoza, Eduardo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 009944898X ISBN 13: 9780099448983

Publisher: Vintage, 2003

Synopsis

Call it natural selection, call it the law of the jungle, what rises to the top in the seething turmoil of Barcelona is the cream - or is it the scum? In the late 1940s, the Civil War is past history but Franco is still very much in charge. Prullas, a popular playwright whose day is now past, leaves his wife by the seaside while he pursues a crowded life in the stifling city: his producer, Gaudet, wants him to persuade their rich backer Vallsigorri that they really cannot use the third-rate actress Lili whom the backer wants to foist on him. In the course of playing honest broker, however, Prullas starts an affair with Lili, but then thinks twice about crossing her protector who is, after all, backing his play, and tries to break off his liaison. Fate intervenes, however, when Vallsigorri is found murdered and Prullas, albeit innocent, becomes the prime suspect.

About this title

Review:

‘Mendoza proves again that for sheer descriptive writing he is unrivalled’ -- André Clavel

From the Back Cover:

WINNER OF FRANCE'S BEST FOREIGN BOOK AWARD

'One of the wisest and most durable novels in recent years' Rafael Conte

Carlos Prullas, successful playwright and hapless adulterer, leaves his wife by the seaside while he pursues a crowded life in post-war fascist Barcelona. It is blazing hot and the rehearsals for his latest production aren't working. His brief liaison with a neighbour's wife has threatened to unhinge her. His friends seem to be growing wary of him: even his faithful maidservant looks as though she has her doubts. And then, just as the sweltering heat boils over, an influential local mafioso turns up stabbed in the chest. As the rehearsals lurch disastrously on, the criminal investigation tightens around the ill-starred Prullas, sending him spiralling into the seedy underworld of the city.

With a twisting but miraculously poised plot, A Light Comedy is a kaleidoscopic portrait of a man caught between the absurdities of life and the calamities of love in a city on fire.

'With its multiple identities, triple twists and pleasing ambiguities, the plot is dextrously constructed, satisfyingly rounded and always busy ... An ironical portrait of an entire society' Times Literary Supplement

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 009944898X
• ISBN 13: 9780099448983
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 480