As he attempts to negotiate the present, he casts his mind back to holidays on the beach with his brothers, to courtship, and to his early working life, when as a young Communist he abandoned his studies to work on a production line.
Warning: do not read if you want cheering up. Beautifully written, wonderfully observed and impeccably translated but oh, so full of despair from start to finish. With a few really funny bits tossed into the mix for good measure. But only a few.
