Novel set in Europe, Manila and Turkey
From Madrid to Heaven
Location(s): Lisbon, Madrid, Tangier
Genre(s): Short Stories
Era(s): Various
In these stories Madrid is the apex of a triangle stretching to Lisbon and Tangier. Characters meet the unexpected in a borderland between Europe and Africa, from the fall of dictators to a surge in trans-Mediterranean migration.
An Arab businessman heading into exile in Madrid finds himself eerily like a native Madrileño bent on fleeing Spanish justice by disappearing into Africa.
An art dealer sent to Tangier to value the collection of an equivocal World War II émigré – Jewish or Nazi – finds its missing canvases in an unexpected place.
The negligence of a son, reluctantly joining his parents in Madrid after aimless world travels, fully returns a feared father who has long outlived himself to life.
A young woman thought to be a loser escapes a predatory Mother Superior to achieve strange triumph with an imprisoned Basque terrorist.
In the title story an expatriate, too self-absorbed in Madrid to have contacted his London-bound brother during his lifetime, somehow finally sees him. He raises a glass of wine to toast: “From Madrid to Heaven – De Madrid al Cielo“.
These stories take characters and readers alike to surprising edges of experience.
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