Josefina Vicens (1915–1988)

Luis Alfonso Fernandez is only fifteen years old when his beloved father, "Poncho", accidentally commits suicide while showing off with a gun. Now, at age nineteen Luis has become his father. At first father and son are interchangeable by name only, both born Luis Alfonso Fernandez. Life and death are balanced precariously; a father's memory is more alive than the living and breathing son could ever be. Luis does not share his father's personality. Poncho was generous, extravagant, manly, charming, extroverted, gregarious, influential, brash, ebullient, narcistic, a dreamer, and popular with everyone. He is gone but definitely not forgotten. Luis the son must make sense of his father's life and is constantly overshadowed by the reputation that refuses to die. It does not help that culture deems him the man of the house now. Soon, his mother treats him like a grown man to be feared. The lines become blurred when Luis inherits the gun that killed his father and his father's mistress. His life has followed so closely in his father's footsteps, Luis might as well been the one to make the initial impressions. He develops a god complex when his father's friends want to make him into another Poncho. Luis finds that instead of wanting to take over his father's life, he wants to be an innocent child again. He mourns a time when his life was unburdened by adulthood. He oscillates between love and hate for his father.
Fair warning: the misogynism is not hard to miss. In this story there are dozens of comments alluding to the belief that women are of little value.… (altro)

Publicada por primera vez en 1958, El libro vacío es la gran novela de Josefina Vicens. La obra, narrada por el protagonista José García, tiene un estilo directo, sencillo e intenso. García tiene una vida aburrida en la que lucha contra sí mismo. Siente una gran necesidad por escribir pero se avergüenza al hacerlo, renuncia y regresa a este acto constantemente. En las noches escribe en sus cuadernos sobre su vida y sus recuerdos, su primer amor, una aventura amorosa y su familia. No sólo es una narración sobre la metafísica de la escritura, sino también sobre los deseos y las limitaciones de un hombre cualquiera.… (altro)