Hernan Diaz's novel is built from four pieces that contradict and complete one another. It opens with Bonds, a novel-within-the-novel about Benjamin and Helen Rask, a financier couple in 1920s New York whose fortune survives the 1929 crash. Then come the autobiographical memoir of the real tycoon Andrew Bevel, the account of Ida Partenza, a young writer hired to ghostwrite it, and finally the diary of Bevel's wife, Mildred. Each section revises the last, asking who gets to tell the story of money and whose version is believed. The setting moves from Wall Street speculation to a sanatorium in Switzerland.
It is a good fit for readers who like formally inventive historical fiction and are curious about how wealth shapes the way history is written. Expect to read with attention, and to reconsider earlier chapters as the book unfolds.
Deep, open-ended and thought-provoking; a moderate read.
Best for readers like The Deep Diver. Which reader are you?
- Published
- 2023
- Publisher
- Anagrama
- ISBN
- 9788433918451
- Language
- ES
