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A Week in October

“I have never been a disciplined person and I’ve spent years not knowing what I want and not living the way I want. Perhaps now that the date and time of my death had been revealed to me, I was ready to write. But how would I begin?”

Clara Griffin, the beautiful wife of a successful Chilean architect, courageously confronts a life-threatening illness while recording her thoughts and experiences in her journal under the guise of a novel. What develops is a thinly veiled version of Clara’s own life, her disappoint with her marriage, her reminiscences of childhood, and the death that seems to surround her. When her husband discovers the notebook, he is stunned: How does she know that he had a mistress all these years? Is he really such a fatuous bore? Could it be true that his sick wife had a passionate love affair with one of his colleagues, right under his nose? Is this just a fictional story — he asks himself, turning the pages — or his wife’s very personal diary as she awaits death?

A Week in October is the first of Elizabeth Subercaseaux’s novels to be translated into English. This tale of erotic tension, deception, and resilience walks the line of suspense from page one to the unexpected, haunting ending that ponders the mysteries of a woman’s heart, where truth is a lie and a lie is truth.

  • Format
  • hardcover
  • Pages
  • 224
  • Language
  • english
  • ISBN
  • 9781590512883
  • Genres
  • fiction, novels
  • Release date
  • 2008