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Published Nov 2016
464 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
From the internationally acclaimed author of The Infatuations comes the mesmerizing story of a couple living in the shadow of a mysterious, unhappy history - a novel about the cruel, tender punishments we exact on those we love.
Madrid, 1980. Juan de Vere, nearly finished with his university degree, takes a job as personal assistant to Eduardo Muriel, an eccentric, once-successful film director. Urbane, discreet, irreproachable, Muriel is an irresistible idol to the young man. But Muriel's voluptuous wife, Beatriz, inhabits their home like an unwanted ghost; and on the periphery of their lives is Dr. Jorge Van Vechten, a family friend implicated in unsavory rumors that Muriel now asks Juan to investigate. As Juan draws closer to the truth, he uncovers only more questions. What is at the root of Muriel's hostility toward his wife? How did Beatriz meet Van Vechten? What happened during the war? Marías leads us deep into the intrigues of these characters, through a daring exploration of rancor, suspicion, loyalty, trust, and the infinitely permeable boundaries between the deceptions perpetrated on us by others and those we inflict upon ourselves.
"Starred Review. Another challenging, boundary-stretching work from Marías, complete with a jaw-dropping last-chapter revelation." - Kirkus
"Thus Bad Begins is a novel, of course, but it could be perfectly read, too, as a beautiful, savage essay on hypocrisy." - Publishers Weekly
"Though still digressive, aphoristic, and drawn out, it pays off at the end as it wallops audiences with some startling twists. " - Library Journal
"A demonstration of what fiction at its best can achieve." - The Guardian (UK)
"A novel that teases, tantalises, entertains, and is easily as engrossing as anything he's written before ... Marías manages to tread the tightrope between a very literary fiction and an absorbing plot; the book dangles the promise of dark, sexual secrets revealed, even as it draws you into a contemplation of the wrenching dilemmas that have shaped modern Spain." - The Times (UK)
"Marías is Spain's own modern-day Cervantes ... His style is less showy than Umberto Eco's, and wittier and more playful than Elena Ferrante's." - The Sunday Times (UK)
"One of Marías's most enjoyable and accessible novels." - Financial Times (UK)
"A ferociously addictive, troubling, seductive read ... I was gripped by every word." - Independent on Sunday (UK)
"Hypnotic ... There's a slow-building sense of Hitchcock in Vertigo mode that keeps us engaged." - The Spectator (UK)
"Magnificent." - The Daily Mail (UK)
"Never less than seamlessly elegant ... As brilliantly well conceived and emotionally profound as one has come to expect from this master." - The Herald (Scotland)
This information about Thus Bad Begins was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Javier Marias was born in Madrid in 1951. The recipient of numerous prizes, including the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Prix Femina Étranger, he has written fourteen novels, three story collections, and twenty works of collected articles and essays. His books have been translated into forty-three languages, in fifty-five countries, and have sold more than eight million copies throughout the world.
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