Susana y los viejos

The family's maid happens to see an old man in an erotic moment with the young woman paid to look after him, and the glimpse unsettles a household that was never quite as ordinary as it pretends. Told from shifting viewpoints across three generations, the novel moves among the people in and around the family: powerful men masking their doubts with an air of respectability and modernity; women expected to care for everyone; servants doing the dirty work; people newly risen to wealth; a fashionable young couple of spoiled former children; and an arrogant, unscrupulous older woman known as Mrs. Robinson. Susana, the object of so much desire, remains a mystery. Echoing the biblical story of Susanna and the elders, the book looks at desire, ageing, class and the shifting balance of power between men and women in recent Spain.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

300 pages in the original

Genres

Family (assigned by AI)

First published

2006 by Ediciones Destino

Author's age

39 when first published

ISBN

9788423338153 (original)