Memories of My Melancholy Whores

February 24, 2014
In Marquez’s novel, on his 19th birthday, a single man living alone in a decrepit mansion decides he wants to fornicate with a young girl. He solicits the help of the madam of the city’s best brothel, who procures for him the perfect subject, a 14-year-old who works in a factory stitching buttons. However instead of having sex with her, the narrator simply watches her sleep—and continues to do so. This action, oft-repeated, unlocks new feelings for the narrator who discovers “the improbable pleasure of contemplating the body of a sleeping woman without the urgencies of desire or the obstacles of modesty.” Rivera’s voice is thick and smoky and he performs the book as if he were whispering to an intimate. And Rivera captures the narrator’s humor, his coyness, and his playfulness, while also proving himself exceptional at creating voices, from the madam to the drunken denizens on the street. A Vintage paperback.

August 22, 2005
García Márquez's slim, reflective contribution to the romance of the brothel, his first book-length fiction in a decade, is narrated by perhaps the greatest connoisseur ever of girls for hire. After a lifetime spent in the arms of prostitutes (514 when he loses count at age 50), the unnamed journalist protagonist decides that his gift to himself on his 90th birthday will be a night with an adolescent virgin. But age, followed by the unexpected blossoming of love, disrupts his plans, and he finds himself wooing the allotted 14-year-old in silence for a year, sitting beside her as she sleeps and contemplating a life idly spent. Flashes of García Márquez's brilliant imagery—the sleeping girl is "drenched in phosphorescent perspiration"—illuminate the novella, and there are striking insights into the euphoria that is the flip side of the fear of death. The narrator's wit and charm, however, are not enough to counterbalance the monotony of his aimlessness. Though enough grace notes are struck to produce echoes of eloquence, this flatness keeps the memories as melancholy as the women themselves. 250,000 first printing.