PacÃfico
Pacific | Anagrama, 2008
» Selected by the critics of El Cultural as one of the 10 best fiction titles of 2008
«My sadness was just a pose, a way of drawing attention to myself, an inevitable condition for becoming a writer.»
This is what the narrator of PacÃfico says – witness to a family saga in which a whole series of misfortunes accumulate behind closed doors, while on the outside world Arsmtrong steps on the moon and a patient survives the first heart transplant in history. If privacy is something that cannot be shared, because it weakens us, PacÃfico is a very private tale that rummages through the insides of its characters with exceptional delicacy, until they become unforgettable creatures given a bad deal by life. The members of this family have known poverty, but they have had it beaten out of them by circumstances. A father who pays a high price for his love affair with the owner of a perfume shop, a mother who has placed a thick glass screen between herself and her children, a brother who builds model ships and who will be destroyed by a fatal coincidence.
With splendid and ringing prose, the author tells the moving story of fragile people in the hands of a destiny that thrives on cruel jokes.
«PacÃfico, the magnificent novel by José Antonio Garriga Vela, is one of the books of the year.» Enrique Vila-Matas, El PaÃs
«The latest novel by José Antonio Garriga Vela manifests control of an extremely careful prose, with superb half-hidden images that gradually draw the profile of a true writer.» José M. Pozuelo Yvancos, ABC
«In barely 200 pages, and with such careful restraint, Garriga Vela portraits a beautiful yet stark family portrait (...) A fantastic novel – the surprise of this autumn.» Javier Goñi, El PaÃs
«Garriga has a surprising ability, while never raising his voice, to keep us glued to his honest prose, which is capable of imposing itself on us lyrically without ever falling into gratuitous lyricism.» Juan Bonilla, Mercurio
«An excellent, dramatic and above all original novel, different to anything else we normally read.» Rosa Regás, El Periódico
«This novel contains a lot of quality and you have to read it.» Antonio Garrido, Sur
«José Antonio Garriga Vela returns with great narrative strength and the maturity of a personal style that differences him from current trends, once again plotting in his own exceptional way in his usual dramatic and poetic world. (…) Literature with a capital L.» Guillermo Busutil, La Opinión de Málaga
«The greatest point of success in this valuable novel lies in having known how to explore the contradictions of a family history of disgraced shipwrecks.» Angel Basanta, El Cultural
