Almost Never
A Novel
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
"Of my generation I most admire Daniel Sada, whose writing project seems to me the most daring." —Roberto Bolaño
This Rabelaisian tale of lust and longing in the drier precincts of postwar Mexico introduces one of Latin America's most admired writers to the English-speaking world.
Demetrio Sordo is an agronomist who passes his days in a dull but remunerative job at a ranch near Oaxaca. It is 1945, World War II has just ended, but those bloody events have had no impact on a country that is only on the cusp of industrializing. One day, more bored than usual, Demetrio visits a bordello in search of a libidinous solution to his malaise. There he begins an all-consuming and, all things considered, perfectly satisfying relationship with a prostitute named Mireya.
A letter from his mother interrupts Demetrio's debauched idyll: she asks him to return home to northern Mexico to accompany her to a wedding in a small town on the edge of the desert. Much to his mother's delight, he meets the beautiful and virginal Renata and quickly falls in love—a most proper kind of love.
Back in Oaxaca, Demetrio is torn, the poor cad. Naturally he tries to maintain both relationships, continuing to frolic with Mireya and beginning a chaste correspondence with Renata. But Mireya has problems of her own—boredom is not among them—and concocts a story that she hopes will help her escape from the bordello and compel Demetrio to marry her. Almost Never is a brilliant send-up of Latin American machismo that also evokes a Mexico on the verge of dramatic change.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A man is torn between lovers in the full-length English-language debut from the late Mexican novelist Sada (1953 2011). In 1945, agronomist Demetrio lives a simple, dull life in Oaxaca, renting a room from Do a Rolanda and supervising peasants in the orchards. In an attempt to spice things up, Demetrio goes to a bordello where he meets Mireya, a gorgeous prostitute with whom he's soon spending every spare moment, and Sada holds nothing back in describing their raucous couplings. The lovers are forced apart when Demetrio accompanies his infirm mother to a wedding in Sacramento, Calif., where he meets the equally beautiful Renata, Mireya's virginal inverse. Demetrio begins a chaste, long-distance courtship with Renata, but Mireya, sensing something amiss, begins urging Demetrio to rescue her from the bordello. When events come to a head, Demetrio must choose between love and lust, though neither object of his affection is exactly who she seems. Sada creates a fascinatingly eccentric cast of characters and manipulates them with skill.
