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Overview
A mystery novel where the heart is the culprit and the reader is the detective sleuthing for two truthsÄîthe storyÄôs and their own
A Week in October is a thriller for those of us who usually prefer a good love story that you just canÄôt put down. In other words it is a thriller-of-the-heart, where the spirit of "dangerous liaisons" is set against the all too familiar and difficult background of breast cancer. The beautiful wife of a successful Chilean architect courageously confronts her illness, mastectomy, and treatment while recording her thoughts and experiences in her journal. What develops is a thinly veiled version of her own life, her disappoint with their cold marriage, her reminiscences of childhood, and the death that seems to surround her. Her husband discovers the notebook and is stunned: How does she know that he had a mistress all these years? Is he really such a fatuous bore? Could it be true that his sick wife had a passionate love affair with one of his colleagues, right under his nose? Is this just a fictional storyÄîhe asks himself, turning the pagesÄîor his wifeÄôs very personal diary as she awaits death?
A bestselling Latin American author, A Week in October is Elizabeth SubercaseauxÄôs first novel to be translated into English. This extraordinary tale about erotic tension, deception, resilience, and death keeps us in suspense, between laughter and tears, until the unexpected, haunting ending that ponders the mysteries of a woman's heart, where truth is a lie and a lie is truth.
Synopsis
A mystery novel where the heart is the culprit and the reader is the detective sleuthing for two truths—the story’s and their own
A Week in October is a thriller for those of us who usually prefer a good love story that you just can’t put down. In other words it is a thriller-of-the-heart, where the spirit of "dangerous liaisons" is set against the all too familiar and difficult background of breast cancer. The beautiful wife of a successful Chilean architect courageously confronts her illness, mastectomy, and treatment while recording her thoughts and experiences in her journal. What develops is a thinly veiled version of her own life, her disappoint with their cold marriage, her reminiscences of childhood, and the death that seems to surround her. Her husband discovers the notebook and is stunned: How does she know that he had a mistress all these years? Is he really such a fatuous bore? Could it be true that his sick wife had a passionate love affair with one of his colleagues, right under his nose? Is this just a fictional story—he asks himself, turning the pages—or his wife’s very personal diary as she awaits death?
A bestselling Latin American author, A Week in October is Elizabeth Subercaseaux’s first novel to be translated into English. This extraordinary tale about erotic tension, deception, resilience, and death keeps us in suspense, between laughter and tears, until the unexpected, haunting ending that ponders the mysteries of a woman's heart, where truth is a lie and a lie is truth.
Publishers Weekly
Chilean author Subercaseaux's intense and engrossing novel (the first one to be translated into English) delves deeply into the troubled psyche and marriage of a woman dying of cancer. In the last months of her life, 46-year-old Clara Griffin, the reserved, childless, well-to-do wife of architect Clemente Balmaceda, begins a fictionalized journal that her husband will secretly read and agonize over. In alternating chapters, Subercaseaux (the great-great-granddaughter of composer Robert Schumann) sets up a coiled tension between what Clara has written, an intimate roman à clef about her coming death and lack of passion for her husband, and her husband's reaction. Clemente is by turns bewildered by her "embellishments" and shocked by her revelations. The crux of Clara's grief stems from Clemente's longstanding affair with another woman, which Clara, as Clemente learns from her notebook, has endured in silence for years. A method of instilling desire, exacting vengeance or simply finding happiness, Clara's notebook digs into the slippery, treacherous nature of love, deception, truth, guilt and loyalty. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Editorials
Publishers Weekly
Chilean author Subercaseaux's intense and engrossing novel (the first one to be translated into English) delves deeply into the troubled psyche and marriage of a woman dying of cancer. In the last months of her life, 46-year-old Clara Griffin, the reserved, childless, well-to-do wife of architect Clemente Balmaceda, begins a fictionalized journal that her husband will secretly read and agonize over. In alternating chapters, Subercaseaux (the great-great-granddaughter of composer Robert Schumann) sets up a coiled tension between what Clara has written, an intimate roman à clef about her coming death and lack of passion for her husband, and her husband's reaction. Clemente is by turns bewildered by her "embellishments" and shocked by her revelations. The crux of Clara's grief stems from Clemente's longstanding affair with another woman, which Clara, as Clemente learns from her notebook, has endured in silence for years. A method of instilling desire, exacting vengeance or simply finding happiness, Clara's notebook digs into the slippery, treacherous nature of love, deception, truth, guilt and loyalty. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Library Journal
Diagnosed with a fatal illness, Clara Griffin begins to keep a journal or write a novel. Which is it? Her husband, Clemente, a successful architect, discovers the notebook and reads it avidly. Is it all true, or is it made up? Does she really think him a smug, complacent bore? How did she find out he had a mistress? Did she really have a passionate affair in the midst of her illness? Did she know he was reading the notebook? This extraordinary novel weaves mystery with suffering, erotic tension, and human resilience. Chilean journalist and fiction writer Subercaseaux has published prolifically, but this is her first novel to be translated into English. One hopes that more will soon follow. Highly recommended.
—Mary Margaret Benson