THE WRONG BLOOD

Even in translation, the American debut of a celebrated Spanish novelist reads rapturously.

Though novels are all about language, this one is even more so. The plot is a fairy-tale contrivance; the characters are kept at a psychological remove. Though the Spanish Civil War provides the key to the various intertwined destinies, it serves as a distant backdrop. What asserts itself most strongly is the author’s literary style—the paragraphs that compare in length with those of Henry James, the chronology that hop-scotches across decades and generations as filtered through the consciousness of various characters, the prose that pulsates and palpitates: “An obscene juice oozed from the leaf buds on the tree. The vulvas of the irises were bursting into wine-colored or striped flowers. The power of the black, awakening earth showed itself in a monstrous way. There was a catastrophic essence in that inexorable and tranquil explosion of spring.” An essential mystery lies at the heart of the elemental plot, which concerns the lives of two very different young women whom fate brings together. One is María Antonia Etxarri, who works at her stepfather’s bar and is raped at the age of 16 by a soldier. The other is Isabel Cruces, who is a few years older than María Antonia and is about to wed a soldier who will be leaving for the war. A rich man traveling to the wedding suffers a stroke at the bar and owes gratitude to María Antonia’s family for caring for him. Flash forward a few decades and Isabel is dead, having left her fortune and mansion to María Antonia, who has become her faithful servant. Isabel’s grandson arrives at the mansion to study for his law exams and spends some time with their neighbor, a crippled doctor. The doctor knows a secret concerning Isabel and María Antonia. The reader learns it.

Grand themes and extravagant prose trump any hint of literary realism.