A Working Woman

by Elvira Navarro

Overview

Acclaimed as a meticulous explorer of the psyche’s most obscure alleyways, Elvira Navarro here gives us a novel of feminine friendship, potent sexuality, madness, and the vulnerability that makes us reveal our most shameful secrets. It begins as Elena transcribes the ravings of her roommate Susana, acting as part-therapist, part-confessor while this odd woman recounts the shocking tale of her gay dwarf boyfriend, the only person who will fulfill her singular sexual appetites. But is she telling the truth? And what to make of Elena’s strange account of her difficult relationship with Susana, one that blends her ambitions as a writer with her deep need for catharsis? And in one final surprise, A Working Woman concludes with a curious epilogue that makes us question everything we have just read. With her penchant for finding the freakish side of the everyday, and her precisely timed, mordant sentences, Navarro’s most successful novel to-date masterfully uncovers the insecurity lurking just beneath the surface of every stable life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781931883658
Publisher:	Two Lines Press
Publication date:	10/10/2017
Pages:	196
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Elvira Navarra was named by Granta magazine one of the “Best of Young Spanish-Language Novelists” in 2010, and she was declared one of the major Spanish voices of the future by the magazine El Cultural in 2013. The author of five novels and short story collections, she has received numerous awards and honors for her work. Translated into French, Swiss, Italian, Turkish, and Arabic, Navarro lives in Barcelona.

Editorial Reviews

★ 08/14/2017
Navarro’s brilliant mindbender of a novel opens in Madrid with the story of Susana, who describes her physical affect as “red-faced blondeness, my coming-apart-at-the-seams way of speaking, and a pair of eyes whose futile, terrifying ship-wreck said it all.” Susana places a personal ad for a sexual partner and winds up with a gay dwarf named Fabio with whom she plunges into an affair almost nihilistic in its intensity. Susana tells all this to her roommate Elisa, a struggling writer and editor with problems of her own. Elisa spends her nights exploring the ruined grounds of an old prison and the dilapidated outskirts of Madrid, and her days editing a ponderous memoir by the widow of a famous Spanish writer, all the while fending off an undisclosed psychiatric ailment. As she tries to adjust to her new medication, which distorts her already fragile sense of reality, Elisa becomes increasingly fascinated by the more willful and dramatically unhinged Susana, especially after she discovers her roommate’s curious pastime of making idiosyncratic maps of Madrid, and becomes fixated on the idea of exhibiting Susan’s work at a gallery. Together, Susana and Elisa set out to combine their artistic endeavors, only to become ensconced in each other’s madness in the process. Navarro’s exceptional novel defies easy interpretation, culminating in a breathtaking and surprising ending. The author is especially skilled at crafting the details and peculiarities of her two characters’ psyches, and the result is a singular novel of art, friendship, and lunacy. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

Named a “Best Book of 2014” by El Cultural, El Confidencial, PlayGround, Numerocero, and Estandarte

"The book surprises the reader with an explosive opening that combines cunnilingus, the full moon, and menstruation. . . . Disconcerting in the best possible sense." — El Cultural

"The singular thing about this novel is . . . the narrative voice." — — El Pais

"Navarro is one of Spanish literature's most interesting contemporary writers. . . . A Working Woman represents a major leap forward in her work." — — Perfil

From the Publisher