"God doesn't want me to write this novel," says the narrator, but she writes it anyway. Set in a Dutch-founded housing development called El Atabal, the story traces her rebellious coming-of-age during Spain's political transition (1976-1983), as she and her magnetic friend Regina break free from mediocrity through hedonism, memory, and the written word. In the midst of a sexual awakening, the narrator encounters a painter named Carlos and a writer named Angel--one perhaps God, the other the Devil--while she becomes a gnostic, androgynous Eve, posing nude in Carlos's version of Paradise. But the painting, part of a provocative series depicting El Atabal's elite in the nude, triggers blackmail... and a sordid murder. A novel of memory, initiation, and literary defiance.
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