Lizard Tails - Softcover

Marse Carbo, Juan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1843430215 ISBN 13: 9781843430216

Publisher: Harvill Press, 2003

Synopsis

A family of Republican sympathisers are still recovering from defeat in Spain's harrowing Civil War. David has been deserted by his father, an alcoholic, political fugitive, and left alone with his pregnant mother. The fantasy world young David inhabits is fuelled by the films he sees at his local cinema and by images of war - Spitfires crashing into the sea, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima - and by the image of an RAF pilot, Captain O'Flynn, whose photograph from a magazine cover is pinned on his bedroom wall. The detachable lizards' tails which David and his friend collect become symbolic of the detachment and uncertainty so much a part of their young lives in a troubled country.

About this title

Review:

"It's magnificent. Once you have finished the novel you feel bound to start again, despite the fact that it has been unforgettable" (Vanguardia)

"Juan Marsé [is] among a generation bringing Iberian writing once more to the fore" (Daily Telegraph)

"Hauntingly well written, full of tightly drawn characters, well crafted, rhythmically impeccable. The language is slangy, staccato, dense and smooth, poetic and prosaic... Juan Marsé's contribution to European fiction has been consistently remarkable; Lizard Tails sustains his high reputation" (Times Literary Supplement)

Book Description:

An intensely moving novel and a masterly evocation of childhood and adolescence.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvill Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1843430215
• ISBN 13: 9781843430216
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240