For the first time in his life, Heribert Juliá is unable to paint. On the eve of an important gallery exhibition, for which he’s created nothing, he’s bored with life: he falls asleep while making love with his mistress, wanders from bar to bar, drinking whatever comes to his attention first, and meets the evidence of his wife Helena’s infidelity with complete indifference. Humbert Herrera, an up-and-coming artist who can’t stop creating, picks up the threads of Heribert’s life, taking his wife, replacing him at the gallery, and pursuing his former mistress. Heribert is finally undone by a massive sculpture, while Humbert is planning the sculpture to end sculpture, the poem to end poetry, and the film to end film, all while mounting three simultaneous shows.
A fun-house mirror through which he examines the creative process, the life and loves of artists, and the New York art scene, Gasoline confirms Quim Monzó as the foremost Catalan writer of his generation.
A fun-house mirror through which he examines the creative process, the life and loves of artists, and the New York art scene, Gasoline confirms Quim Monzó as the foremost Catalan writer of his generation.
Mary Ann Newman is the Director of the Catalan Center at New York University, which is an affiliate of the Institut Ramon Llull. She is a translator, editor, and occasional writer on Catalan culture. In addition to Quim Monzó, she has translated Xavier Rubert de Ventós, Joan Maragall, and Narcis Comadira, among others.
May 14, 2010
Novel
Paperback, 138 pages
$14.95 $11.95
5.5" x 8.5"
978-1-934824-18-4
1-934824-18-6
Novel
Paperback, 138 pages
5.5" x 8.5"
978-1-934824-18-4
1-934824-18-6
"Monzó delivers drollery on nearly every page, in observations that are incisive and hilarious and horrifying, often all at once."
—Publishers Weekly
“Quim Monzó is today's best known writer in Catalan. He is also, no exaggeration, one the world’s great short-story writers. This novel shows all his idiosyncrasy and originality. We have at last gained the opportunity to read (in English) one of the most original writers of our time.”
—The Independent
“To read this novel is to enter a fictional universe created by an author trapped between aversion to and astonishment at the world in which he has found himself.”
—Times Literary Supplement
“A gifted writer, he draws well on the rich tradition of Spanish surrealism to put a deliberately paranoic sense of menace in the apparently mundane everyday and also to sustain the lyrical, visionary quality of his imagination.”
—New York Times
