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General Fiction
A sweeping historical romance inspired by the real-life daughter of Miguel de Cervantes, celebrated author of Don Quixote
Madrid, 1599. Following her mother's sudden death, fifteen-year-old Isabel goes to live in the family home of her father, the poet and war hero Miguel de Cervantes, a man she has never met. Forced to pose as a maid to conceal her illegitimate status, Isabel must adapt to a new way of life with her jealous cousin and protective aunts while she waits for her father to return from Seville. Meanwhile, in the nearby town of Esquivias, Miguel's pious and faithful wife Catalina similarly awaits his return, blissfully unaware of Isabel's existence.
As Miguel works on the manuscript that will become his masterpiece, Don Quixote, the years pass and Isabel grows into womanhood, falling in and out love, uncovering family secrets, and yearning for the legitimacy denied her by a rigid and callous society. Capturing two tumultuous decades of Golden Age Spain in rich historical detail, Martha Bátiz paints a compassionate portrait of a family on the precipice of great change--and the fiercely independent woman at its centre striving to make a life of her own.
--Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less and Less Is Lost "The Wildes is a marvel of tenderness, irony, heartbreak, and reclamation that demonstrates why Bayard is among the most essential--and most entertaining--interrogators of the past."
--Anthony Marra, author of Mercury Pictures Presents and A Constellation of Vital Phenomena In September of 1892, Oscar Wilde and his family have retreated to the idyllic Norfolk countryside for a holiday. His wife, Constance, has every reason to be happy: two beautiful sons, her own work as an advocate for feminist causes, and a delightfully charming and affectionate husband and father to her children, who also happens to be the most sought-after author in England. But with the arrival of an unexpected houseguest, the aristocratic young poet Lord Alfred Douglas, Constance gradually--and then all at once--comes to see that her husband's heart is elsewhere and that the growing intensity between the two men threatens the whole foundation of their lives. The Wildes: A Novel in Five Acts takes readers on the emotional journey of this family, moving from the Italian countryside, where Constance Wilde flees from the aftermath of Oscar's imprisonment for homosexuality, to the trenches of World War I and an underground bar in London's Soho, where Oscar's sons Cyril and Vyvyan must both grapple with their father's legacy. And in a brilliant feat of the imagination, act 5 reunites the entire cast in a surprising, poignant, and tremendously satisfying tableau. With Louis Bayard's trademark sparkling dialogue and deep insight into the lives and longings of all his characters, The Wildes could almost have been created by Oscar Wilde himself. Lightly told but with hidden depths, it is an entertaining and dramatic story about the human condition.