Thus Bad Begins

Award-winning author Javier Marías examines a household living in unhappy the shadow of history, and explores the cruel, tender punishments we exact on those we love As a young man, Juan de Vere takes a job that will haunt him for the rest of his life. Eduardo Muriel is a famous film director - urbane, discreet, irreproachable - an irresistible idol to a young man. Muriel's wife Beatriz is a soft, ripe woman who slips through her husband's home like an unwanted ghost, finding solace in other beds. And on the periphery of all their lives stands Dr Jorge Van Vechten, a shadowy family friend implicated in unsavoury rumours that Muriel cannot bear to pursue himself - rumours he asks Juan to investigate instead. But as Juan draws closer to the truth, he uncovers more questions, ones his employer has not asked and would rather not answer. Why does Muriel hate Beatriz? How did Beatriz meet Van Vechten? And what happened during the war? As Juan learns more about his employers, he begins to understand the conflicting pulls of desire, power and guilt that govern their lives - and his own. Marias presents a study of the infinitely permeable boundaries between private and public selves, between observer and participant, between the deceptions we suffer from others and those we enact upon ourselves. 'No one else, anywhere, is writing quite like this' Daily Telegraph on The Infatuations

About the Author :
Javier Marías 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.

Review :
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. A ferociously addictive, troubling, seductive read... I was gripped by every word A fusion of a coming-of-age story with something like a conspiracy thriller...a demonstration of what fiction at its best can achieve The characters may wish they'd closed their eyes and covered their ears, but the reader will devour every exquisitely wretched revelation Almodóvar-esque Marías returns with another masterful tapestry of noir-ish twists and digressive cerebration