Todas las hijas de la casa de mi padre

"God does not want me to write this novel," says the narrator. Yet she writes it, recounting her awakening to adulthood from her teenage years in a housing development called El Atabal—founded by the Dutch—where her rebellious hedonism and friendship with the omnipresent Regina propel her far beyond the surrounding mediocrity. Hers is a novel about memory and about writing as a weapon against the world; it is a story defined by transitions and initiations—transitions, because the events unfold in Spain between 1976 and 1983; and initiations, because the narrative charts the discovery of the adult world through sex and desire. Amidst this sexual awakening, the narrator meets a painter named Carlos and a writer named Ángel. Perhaps one of them is God and the other the Devil; perhaps she is a Gnostic, androgynous Eve whom Carlos paints naked in his own private Paradise. The painting is part of a series of canvases featuring—also in the nude—the development’s leading figures, a transgression that leads to blackmail and a sordid murder.