Award-winning Barcelona novel with Bolano-esque humour: with women, men, lovers, loners, Marilyn (a cat) and Bret Easton Ellis (a dog).

Losing her son in a lorry accident, a woman abandons her lover and her life on the Mexican border and becomes a domestic servant in Madrid; following an awkward ménage-à-trois, a timber agent is blackmailed into introducing his lover's boyfriend to his best client; a depressed, misfit French teacher rejects the overtures of students and would-be lovers; all the while sharp-eyed young Araceli watches over everything from her decrepit apartment.