A vivid, enchanting novel, spanning over sixty years, chronicling the lives, loves, and secrets of three generations of women in 20th-century Barcelona—a rediscovered classic by “the shining light of Catalan literature” (Colm Tóibín), with an introduction from Catherine Lacey
“That Roig’s work has lost none of its immediacy over the years speaks to the urgency of her prose and the timelessness of her vision.”—Anthony Marra, author of Mercury Pictures Presents
Three women from the same family—grandmother, mother, and daughter, all named Ramona—come to life in the pages of Montserrat Roig’s Goodbye, Ramona. The eldest Ramona lives quietly with her well-meaning husband, but longs for the romance and adventure of her favorite nineteenth-century novels. Years later, her daughter, Ramona Ventura, finds herself constantly enduring her husband’s mood swings and aggressive outbursts. The youngest Ramona falls for a university student whose progressive ideals are undercut by his condescending treatment of her. Each woman, in her own time and in her own way, lives her life in silence: their true feelings about the men in their lives, the violence of Franco’s dictatorship, and their dreams and aspirations, all go unspoken.
But the youngest Ramona is lucky enough to be growing up in a Barcelona on the brink of revolution, in the 1960s, when women are finally beginning to claim agency. Will she break free from the fate of the women who came before her and build a life centered on her own happiness?
Goodbye, Ramona is an unforgettable social mosaic of Barcelona across the 20th-century, and a universal, powerhouse story of love, power, and the lasting influence that family holds over all of us.
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