Thus Bad Begins

Publisher’s description. From one of Spain’s most acclaimed literary voices comes a rich and complex portrait of mutual deception, toxic love and cruel, lingering guilt. A youth caught in the middle of someone else’s bitter marriage; a beautiful woman scorned; a man torn between conscience and will. Step into the melancholic, unforgiving world of Javier Marías. * Penguin *Marías returns with another masterful tapestry of noir-ish twists and digressive cerebration * The Millions *Elegant and beautiful, reminiscent of Proust… Magnificent * Daily Mail *One of Marias’s most enjoyable and accessible novels * Financial Times *Marias is relentless in his pursuit of literary and psychological truth * Sunday Times *Ferociously addictive, troubling [and] seductive… It works as high literary fiction, constantly picking apart our assumptions about story and fiction, but also offering good old-fashioned plot’ * Independent *A powerful study of history and memory from a literary giant * Sunday Times *Easily as engrossing as anything he’s written before… He manages to tread the tightrope between a very literary fiction and an utterly absorbing plot * The Times *Alfred Hitchcock would be a home with Marias - but so too might Harold Pinter…It’s a rare trick to pull off, this combination of suspense, analysis and metaphysics that aims both high at the brow and low at the gut * Prospect *Almodóvar-esque * New York Magazine *

Javier Marias was born in Madrid in 1951 and died in 2022. He published fifteen novels, three collections of short stories and several volumes of essays. His work has been translated into forty-three languages and has won a dazzling array of international literary awards, including the prestigious Dublin IMPAC award for A Heart So White. He held academic posts in Spain, the United States and in Britain, as Lecturer in Spanish Literature at Oxford University.

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