Although the Nobel Prize-winning author of One Hundred Years of Solitude may have abandoned Until August before proclaiming it finished, Gabriel García Márquez's fans will note many of the brilliant elements characteristic of his oeuvre.
His mastery of the opening sentence, for instance: "She returned to the island on Friday, August 16, on the three o'clock ferry." García Márquez thus establishes Ana Magdalena Bach's annual visit to place flowers upon her mother's grave on the anniversary of her death eight years ago. Every year, she takes the same ferry, travels in the same taxi, stays at the same hotel, buys gladioli from the same florist. But this year, she will invite a man up to her room.
García Márquez skillfully captures the salient details in a single phrase: "All of a sudden, like a fatal flash, she was struck by the brutal awareness that, for the first time in her life, she had fornicated and spent the night with a man who was not her own." The outsides mirror Ana Magdalena's insides at the mainland's port: the buildings "seemed alien and rotted by the salty sea air." She and her husband of 27 years enjoy a very active and loving sex life. But now, suspicions about fidelity come to the fore.
With a startling yet perfect ending, Until August is a provocative meditation about the ongoing assessment in any longtime intimate relationship--whether committed partners or parents and children. It is a treasured final gift from a beloved author. --Jennifer M. Brown, reviewer