August, October

Barba, Andrés

"They couldn't have been more than fourteen, and yet they were older than him, as old as fossil fish, as survival, as torture or neglect. They'd become realists. Their sexuality was clearly developed, and that seemed to have created mysterious bonds among them, a closeness and empathy, like wolves that went hunting in a pack."
Fourteen-year-old Tomás goes with his well-off family on their usual seaside summer holiday, but he is at a stage in his life when nothing is the same. Sullenly detached from his family, full of confused intimations of sexuality, he is also faced with death when his widowed aunt, who lives in the resort, is taken seriously ill. As he becomes close to her on her deathbed he frequents the forbidden in the form of some lower-class village kids—casually transgressive boys and even more alien, sexually knowing girls—that will get him involved on the last day in a gang rape of a vulnerable girl. Though when it is his turn, Tomás only pretends to do it—enough to save face with the boys—back in Madrid, he wrestles with guilt and confusion. He finally decides to go back secretly, alone, to find the girl and apologise for what happened, but despite the moving scene of atonement and forgiveness, ambiguity lurks even in this redemption.
A very adult novel about adolescence written in a crafted, sensual prose that resonates hauntingly in the mind.