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In celebration of Independent Bookstore Day, shop our limited-time sale on bestselling audiobooks from April 22nd-28th. Don’t miss out—purchases support your local bookstore!
Shop nowThis Too Shall Pass
A Novel
Narrator
Mozhan Marnò
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Translator
Valerie Miles
Length
3 hours 58 minutes
Language
English
An irresistible, vivid, and wise story of one woman's reckoning with loss and love
Blanca is forty years old and motherless. Shaken by the unexpected death of the most important person in her life, she suddenly realizes that she has no idea what her future will look like.
To ease her dizzying grief and confusion, Blanca turns to her dearest friends, her closest family, and a change of scenery. Leaving Barcelona behind, she returns to Cadaqués, on the coast, accompanied by her two sons, two ex-husbands, and two best friends, and makes a plan to meet her married lover for a few stolen moments as well. Surrounded by those she loves most, she spends the summer in an impossibly beautiful place, finding ways to reconnect and understand what it means to truly, happily live on her own terms, just as her mother would have wanted.
A refreshingly frank and ruefully funny portrait of a grieving daughter, THIS TOO SHALL PASS explores how our deepest relationships are changed by tragedy, with bonds often becoming stronger in ways we never expected.
MILENA BUSQUETS was born in Barcelona where she attended the Lycée Français de Barcelone. She obtained a degree in archaeology from the Institute of Archaeology at University College London, began work in publishing, and has since founded her own publishing house. She currently works as a journalist and as a translator.
Reviews
Praise for THIS TOO SHALL PASS:"A best seller in Ms. Busquets’ native Spain, the novel was partly inspired by the author’s emotions after the death of her mother, Esther Tusquets, a well-known publisher and author there. This accounts for the book’s sense of lived-in emotional truth, its deeply convincing, unconventional passage through pain." --New York Times
“[This Too Shall Pass] has a heady, intellectual air, adding a twist of Alain de Botton to the novel’s effervescent blend of Erica Jong and Pedro Almodóvar… Like a day at the beach -- a European beach, with cigarettes and espresso -- this novel lingers in the mind well after it is over, reminding us of the intimacy between pleasure and loss.” --New York Times Book Review
"Busquets' tale is both poignant and funny, an astute exploration of the inevitable sea change that comes with losing a parent."--People
"Busquets' sleek novella set in her native Spain, feels like the book equivalent of a European art-house film: frankly existential, full of ravishing imagery."--Entertainment Weekly
“[A] summery, sexy, cool debut novel…light, profound, sensual, unmistakably European: this may be the only book about grief to feel like a vacation.” --Kirkus (starred review)
"A literary tsunami...A seductive voice, one that wants to take a strong bite of life." --Silvia Marimon, ARA (Spain)
"A pure concentrate of emotion and intelligence . . . Unforgettable." --Marie Claire (France)
"The book of the summer."--Vogue (France)
"One of the most elegant books you can read."-- L’Express
"A luminous and profound book."--ELLE (France)
"Therein lies the secret of this short and deeply intense novel: in the building of a conscience that has been suddenly expelled from paradise." --Domingo Ródenas, El Periódico (Spain)
"One of the most beautiful reads of 2015." --AMICA (Italy)
"An intense novel, with delicate prose, both touching and deeply funny." --Vis Molina, El Cultural (Spain)
“A praiseworthy and truly literary work." --Antonio Lozano, Culturas, La Vanguardia (Spain)
"[This Too Shall Pass is] full of subtle wisdom." --Carmen Posadas, Harper's Bazaar
“This Too Shall Pass is an intimate story about loss and mourning, about saying goodbye, growing up; it’s funny and the love for life jumps from the page. But mostly it is a declaration of love from a daughter who cannot forget her mother. Who doesn’t want to forget."—Trow (The Netherlands)
"A moving declaration of love to a dead mother and an accomplished balancing act on the thin line between lightness and tragedy.”-- De Standaard (The Netherlands)
“Atypical, crazy, comical, painful. An original tale of loss that alternates vitality and grief, making them coincide, also in style: in the natural flow, without interruption, from the third person narrator to the first: you, mother.” -- Il Corriere de la Sera (Italy)
“This is not a distressing tale, on the contrary, it is full of life and sex.” -- Il Secolo XIX (Italy)
"A brilliant, lucid, poignant, bare and aching memory of a good-bye.”-- Juan Marsé
“Intense”—Femina (Sweden) Expand reviews