Santiago's Way

Moving and often comic, this is the first-ever translation from the Spanish of an award-winning--the 2001 Nuevo Leon Literary Prize--novel from Mexico. Santiago is a male figure who appears in the narrator's consciousness after her failed attempt at suicide at the age of fourteen. He arrives to supplant Mina, a childlike creature of the mind who has shepherded the narrator since birth but whose lack of worldly wisdom has caused her host constant problems as she blunders through school, never quite understanding why she never gets things right. The vulnerable innocence of life with Mina grows even more distressing with the onset of sexuality. With Santiago's arrival Mina is driven away, and as an adult the narrator achieves unprecedented successes, as she walks Santiago's way, but never feels truly herself. Who is Santiago? What is Santiago? Her adventures in Madrid and London gradually reveal the downside of Santiago and the paranoia that underlies his worldly wisdom. Returning to Mexico, she manages ten years of marriage before her bodily invader turns against her husband. Offering a parade of interpretations in its depiction of an invaded psyche, this first novel by Patricia Laurent, author of several prize-winning stories, heralds an exciting and original voice in modern fiction.