Skylight - Hardcover

Saramago, José; Costa, Margaret Jull

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0544090020 ISBN 13: 9780544090026

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014

Synopsis

A previously unpublished novel by a literary master, Skylight tells the intertwined stories of the residents of a faded apartment building in 1940s Lisbon.  Silvestre and Mariana, a happily married elderly couple, take in a young nomad, Abel, and soon discover their many differences. Adriana loves Beethoven more than any man, but her budding sexuality brings new feelings to the surface. Carmen left Galicia to marry humble Emilio, but hates Lisbon and longs for her first love, Manolo. Lidia used to work the streets, but now she’s kept by Paulo, a wealthy man with a wandering eye.

These are just some of the characters in this early work, completed by Saramago in 1953 but never published until now. With his characteristic compassion, depth, and wit, Saramago shows us the quiet contentment of a happy family and the infectious poison of an unhappy one. We see his characters’ most intimate moments as well as the casual encounters particular to neighbors living in close proximity. Skylight is a portrait of ordinary people, painted by a master of the quotidian, a great observer of the immense beauty and profound hardships of the modern world.

About this title

Review

An Amazon Best Book of the Month, December 2014: Anyone who has ever lived in an apartment building is familiar with the unique intimacy that such dwellings unintentionally provide. You may never see your upstairs neighbor, but you know that he wakes up at 6am sharp, grinds his coffee beans, and has a parrot that knows how to say a few choice curse words. Sometimes you know far more--stories pieced together by casual encounters in common areas, or bits of conversations overheard through too-thin walls...In the previously unpublished novel, Skylight, the late, great José Saramago gives us unfettered access to the lives of several tenants in a Lisbon apartment building in 1940—lives that intersect and sometimes clash in shocking ways. Saramago’s gift for penning well-drawn female characters is on full display here, as is his mastery of illuminating the extraordinary in the mundane. But Skylight is also a very philosophical novel in Saramago’s signature style, one in which the characters wrestle with profound questions, questions the reader will grapple with long after the last page is turned. –Erin Kodicek

Book Description

HMH hardcover 2014, previous ISBN 978-0-544-09002-6

About this edition

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0544090020
• ISBN 13: 9780544090026
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320