The Winterlings

Sánchez-Andrade tells the tissue-thin story of two Galician sisters, Delores and Saladina—the Winterlings—who return to their grandfather’s village of Tierra de Chá following years of exile in England after the Spanish Civil War. On the surface, life there is bucolic. The women sew; make cheese from the milk produced by their cow, Greta; and eat figs from an ancient tree, all while dreaming of Hollywood movies. But their return is met with fear and skepticism among the villagers, an eccentric lot including their gluttonous fool of a priest; the cross-dressing dentist, Mr. Tenderlove; the philosophizing Uncle Rosendo; and an old clairvoyant named Violeta. The villagers cleave to secrets having to do with their betrayal of the Winterlings’ grandfather, Don Reinaldo, a Republican sympathizer who was tortured and ultimately murdered by the fascist military. The sisters have their own secrets: Delores, the pretty one, marries a fisherman, but under strange circumstances returns home to Saladina, and her husband is never seen again; Saladina, the ugly one, begins visiting Mr. Tenderlove, who replaces her rotten teeth one by one with those from the mouths of the dead. After this, it is Saladina who sneaks away for several days when it is rumored Ava Gardner has come to Spain to shoot a movie and is auditioning for body doubles. History badgers all of Sánchez-Andrade’s characters, but superficially. Nothing the sisters experienced in England, nor anything they accomplished upon their return to Spain, enlightens or matures them. Who were they for two decades? Actresses perhaps, or maids? Where were their parents? It’s easy to suspend disbelief for the author’s entertaining bouts of magical realism, but no wisdom or historical event remains imprinted upon either one of her principal characters, each of whom begins and ends as a country bumpkin. (Nov.)