Confessions - Jaume Cabr

"Monumental" Guardian

An instant bestseller in ten languages, Confessions is an astonishing story of one man's life, interwoven with a narrative that stretches across centuries to create an addictive and unforgettable literary symphony.

Drawing comparisons with Shadow of the Wind, The Name of the Rose and The Reader, and an instant bestseller in ten languages, Confessions is an astonishing story of one man s life, interwoven with a narrative that stretches across centuries to create an addictive and unforgettable literary symphony.

At 60 and with a diagnosis of early Alzheimer's, Adria Ardevol re-examines his life before his memory is systematically deleted. He recalls a loveless childhood where the family antique business and his father's study become the centre of his world; where a treasured Storioni violin retains the shadows of a crime committed many years earlier. His mother, a cold, distant and pragmatic woman leaves him to his solitary games, full of unwanted questions. An accident ends the life of his enigmatic father, filling Adria's world with guilt, secrets and deeply troubling mysteries that take him years to uncover and driving him deep into the past where atrocities are methodically exposed and examined.

Gliding effortlessly between centuries, and at the same time providing a powerful narrative that is at once shocking, compelling, mysterious, tragic, humorous and gloriously readable, Confessions reaches a crescendo that is not only unexpected but provides one of the most startling denouements in contemporary literature. Confessions is a consummate masterpiece in any language, with an ending that will not just leave you thinking, but quite possibly change the way you think forever.

Translated from the Catalan by Mara Faye Lethem