La edad media

***Shortlisted for the Best First Novel Award (France’s Chambéry Festival)***

«A formidable novel, not only for what it has to say, but also for the literary panache with which it does so, (…) Its scenes pack a singular tribal punch, with great eloquence (…) the novel of a generation.» Pozuelo Yvancos, ABC Cultural

«Amid the rage and lyricism, the comedy and the tragedy, the broken dreams of a generation as it bids farewell to youth and comes of age at a time when prospects are bleak attain a rare profundity in the dazzling first novel by Murcia-born writer Leonardo Cano.» Matías Néspolo, El Mundo

«What is most striking, above all in the case of a first novel, is the way in which Leonardo Cano adheres so rigidly to the rules of play he has set for his narrative voices (…) In short, this excellent debut is a pleasant surprise, leaving the reader with high hopes for the author’s next offering.» Javier Fernández de Castro, El País

>2nd reprint!

(The Middle Age) This cannot possibly be our story.

SonfoRana, Moya and Fauró’s final days in the classrooms of a select school chosen by their parents so that their offspring might following in their footsteps as doctors, lawyers and architects, are coming to an end. Years later, the three will come together at the 15th Anniversary School Reunion organised on social media. This will be a chance to take stock of that uncertain, shadowy future that could perhaps already be glimpsed back when they discussed Tintin and the Famous Five or, later, when they were torn between Nirvana and Pearl Jam.

Three stories interlocking over time, shot through with anxiety, humour and the tragedy of ambitions that have fallen by the wayside. Fierce and poetic at one and the same time, Leonardo Cano’s original first novel explores the depths of desire at a frantic pace, fusing the wild school environs of Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Time of the Hero, the levity of the best romantic comedies about life online and the bureaucratic indifference of a legal system, calling to mind Houellebecq’s curmudgeonly characters, or their ruthless counterparts in the work of Bret Easton Ellis.

From three striking viewpoints, the book tells three tales of the past and the present, unveiling the personal, professional and sentimental exploits of young men who watch as their hopes and dreams crumble to dust when they come into contact with the adult world (and with them those of an entire generation and an era not long past).