AUTHOR: Susana Fortes
PUBLISHER: Suma de Letras
GENRE: Political Thriller/Love Story
READER’S NAME: Eduardo de Lamadrid
DATE: April 3, 2014

A love affair, emerging from the conflagrations of a nation sliding into civil war, is the origin of this absorbing novel. The protagonists are the student Kate Moore and the professor Alvaro Diaz-Ugarte, whose amorous involvement will lead them to share harrowing experiences during the Second Spanish Republic.

The year is 1935 and the place is Madrid, at a key moment of the era, as the Radical Government of Lerroux is in power, with the incoherent but persistent backing of forces on the right. The Asturian rebellion of the previous year has been quelled, but echoes of the repression still percolate under the surface in the cauldron of political life.

Kate, an Hispanist in the making, is fascinated as she arrives at the Student Residency, a fulcrum of Spanish university and intellectual life, in full effervescence. There she will meet an attractive (in his own way) literature professor and will have an emotional and existential adventure with him, coinciding with a moment of complex political intrigue.

That adventure and love story is narrated as one giant flashback by Kate, the circle closing expertly at the end of novel, when the reasons behind the events leading to her trials and tribulations in Spain are fully explained.

An ill-fated student, Gabino Aguirre, obsessed by the poetry of Dante Rossetti and bearing a striking resemblance to Clark Gable, is found dead in strange and unsavory circumstances. Kate and Alvaro then proceed to investigate the particulars, and uncover prostitution, blackmail, murder and even torture, all linked to the infamous financial scandal called the "Estraperlo affair", which eventually brought down the government. As a result of their inquiries, Kate is kidnapped and imprisoned and Alvaro does all he can to save her. The tension and fast pace of the political thriller genre is maintained at all times.

From here on, the story turns, bit by bit, from the thriller mode and becomes more of a character study, delving into the psychological make-up of each protagonist. The reader discovers and understands who is who in this atypical couple. Probing into romance and passion, the vital motivations and contradictions of the protagonists are exposed by the perspicacious observations of one who understands human nature. The writer writes in the third person and yet is capable of introducing herself, with equal precision, into the minds of Kate and Alvaro.

Aside from her psychological acuity, the author offers the reader an interesting, finely constructed plot, precise and well-researched in its historical aspects, providing more than a mere stroll through the past. Her discourse is rich and full of literary, pictorial, and cinematographic references and allusions. Undoubtedly, the epoch, the years in question, the historical coordinates are ones she knows, is fascinated by, and moves in with all the dexterity of a fish in calm waters. Fortes has been able to integrate seamlessly into one text an assassination attempt, an indiscriminate detention, and a corrupt conspiracy with quotidian moments like having beer and tapas at a bar or hearing piropos (flirtatious comments) while strolling through the streets of Madrid.

The story is clearly inspired by the relationship between the poet Pedro Salinas, who appears as a secondary character in the novel, and the American Katherine Whitmore, apparently his muse. More educated readers will recognize some of the poetry ascribed to Alvaro Diaz-Ugarte as being by Salinas.

While the American reading public may not be familiar with the real events (Estraperlo Affair) and persons alluded to, for example, Lerroux, Gil Robles, and the poets known as the Generation of 27 (except perhaps Lorca), the Spanish Civil War and the participation of Americans in that conflict still has some resonance in its imagination. Kate, the American protagonist, who like another Kansas farm girl of the era, leaves home and loses her innocence in a strange and exotic world, would certainly be an attraction for American readers in any translation of this masterly novel.