Ordesa

A Novel

By: Manuel Vilas, Andrea Rosenberg - translator

Narrated by: John Pirhalla

”A meditation on yearning, solitude, and self; a soul storm, a mirage of phantom figures...a book of deep reckoning.” (The New York Times Book Review)

The number-one international best-selling phenomenon - a profound and riveting story of love, loss, and memory.

A man at a crossroads in the middle of his life considers the place where he’s from, and where his parents have recently died. In the face of enormous personal tumult, he sits down to write. What follows is an audacious chronicle of his childhood and an unsparing account of his life’s trials, failures, and triumphs that becomes a moving look at what family gives and takes away.

With the intimacy of a diarist, he reckons with the ghosts of his parents and the current specters of his divorce, his children, his career, and his addictions. In unswervingly honest prose, Vilas explores his identity after great loss - what is a person without a marriage or without parents? What is a person when faced with memories alone? Already an acclaimed poet and novelist in Spain, Vilas takes his work to a whole new level with this autobiographical novel; critics have called it “a work of art able to cauterize pain.”

Elegiac and searching, Ordesa is a meditation on loss and a powerful exploration of a person who is both extraordinary and utterly ordinary - at once singular and representing us all - who transforms a time of crisis into something beautiful and redemptive.

©2016, 2020 Manuel Vilas; Andrea Rosenberg - translation (P)2020 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“Poignant and sensitive portrait of a wounded man ... A journey both nostalgic and melancholic.” (Library Journal, starred review)

“Vilas is a Spanish poet, novelist, and essayist born in 1962 who has enjoyed critical and commercial success in his homeland with this book.... Vilas also conveys - and Rosenberg smoothly translates - many moments of pain and happiness any reader might recognize as the narrator plunges into the maelstrom of closely examined memory. A dark and challenging but emotionally rich work.” (Kirkus Reviews)

"Vibrant English-language debut ... Despite lacking a central arc, the novel hums with magnetic and lively scenes. This is an indelible portrait of a man facing the costs of a life dedicated to remembrance.” (Publishers Weekly)

Complicated

I was never quite sure of what to make of it, but I found it quite touching at times. I kept listening because I wanted to see where it was going and how the story as a whole would affect me. It was unique and I doubt I’ll ever forget it. I really liked the narration. I am very picky when it comes to narrators and I thought this one was pretty close to perfect.