Marquez's Memories

Memories Of My Melancholy Whores, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s first work of fiction in a decade, deals with a 90-year-old’s attempt to sleep with a 14-year-old virgin. It sounds creepy. And, despite putting up a brave front, The Book Standard doesn’t quite know what to make of it:

“[T]he scenario is disturbing. There is no indication—unless it is the word 'melancholy' in the title—that García Márquez means his tale to be the parody of macho idiocy it appears to be. His hero ends revitalized and radiantly optimistic, while readers are left wondering, ‘Can he be serious?’ ”