Swift As Desire - Softcover

Laura Esquivel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0552999547 ISBN 13: 9780552999540

Publisher: Black Swan, 2002

Synopsis

Instead of entering the world crying, like other babies, Jubilo was born with a smile on his face. He had a gift for hearing what was in people's hearts, for listening to sand dunes sing and insects whisper. Even as a young boy, acting as an interpreter between his warring Mayan grandmother and Spanish-speaking mother, he would translate words of spite into words of respect, so that their mutual hatred turned to love. When he grew up, he put his gift to good use in his job as a humble telegraph operator. But now the telegraph lies abandoned, obsolete as a form of communication in the electronic age, and Don Jubilo is on his deathbed, mute and estranged from his beloved wife, Lucha, who refuses to speak to him. What tragic event has come between such two such sensuous, loving people to cause their seemingly irreparable rift? What mystery lies behind the death of the son no-one ever mentions? Can their daughter bring reconciliation to her parents before it is too late, by acting as an interpreter between them in Morse code, just as Jubilo used to do for other people? In this magical, bittersweet story, touched with graphic earthiness and wit, Laura Esquivel shows us how keeping secrets will always lead to unhappiness, and how communication is the key to love.

About this title

Review

Laura Esquivel's Swift as Desire, an enchanting and sensuous romance, reflects upon an undying love and the will to overcome an unspeakable tragedy. As in her bestselling novel Like Water for Chocolate, Swift as Desire is rich with metaphor, coated with magic, and very much about the power of desire. Júbilo, a telegraph operator blessed (or cursed) with the ability to hear what people feel, radiates joy from his birth. He spends his life mediating for others and salvaging their relationships, until disaster strikes his own life and causes him to question, even loathe, his supernatural gift.

He who knew that no matter how quiet the air was, there were always hearts beating, planets spinning in the heavens, bodies breathing, plants growing; and all producing sounds, but he hadn't heard anything! He hadn't heard anything!

Writing the novel as a tribute to her father (himself, a telegraph operator), Esquivel integrates her belief in the power of words. Swift as Desire is an engaging and enjoyable story that anyone with the slightest interest in a sensually romantic novel will find quite desirable, indeed. --Yvonne Schindler

From the Inside Flap

As the millions of fans of "Like Water for Chocolate know, Laura Esquivel is a romanticist whose novels explore the power of love and the truths of the human heart. She returns to those themes in Swift as Desire, the story of a loving and passionate man who has the gift of bringing happiness to everyone except his own wife.
The hero of this novel" is Jubilo Chi, a telegraph operator who is born with the ability to "hear" people's true feelings and respond to their most intimate, unspoken desires. His life changes forever the day he falls deeply and irrevocably in love with Lucha, the beautiful daughter of a wealthy family. She believes money is necessary to insure happiness, while for Jubilo, who is poor, love and desire are more important than possessions. But their passion for each other enables them to build a happy life together -- until their idyll is shattered by a terrible event that drives them bitterly apart. Only years later, as Jubilo lies dying, is his daughter able to unravel the mystery behind her parents' long estrangement and bring about a surprising reconciliation.

About this edition

• Publisher: Black Swan
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0552999547
• ISBN 13: 9780552999540
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 329