The Endless Rose

"A disquieting, haunting work, The Endless Rose begins when a one-legged woman's manuscript is accepted by a small publishing house consisting of two friends. Stunned and excited by her writing, they invite her to visit them in the south of Spain. The hypnotic, gut-wrenching events that follow--revolving around a brutal murder mentioned in the book's first pages--are plunged into an atmosphere of dreams, violence, and bizarre coincidence. Maleno has managed to distill a mash of Michel Houellebecq (who figures as a character here), Roberto Bolaäno (The Endless Rose takes its title from a fictional novel mentioned in the Chilean's posthumous masterpiece), and Enrique Vila-Matas (whose technique of textured allusion Maleno has mastered) into a strange brew that is all his own."--