The Infatuations was the first book I read by Marías, and after finishing it, I knew I needed to read his epic Your Face Tomorrow trilogy. I waited nearly a year to start it, but as soon as I read the first paragraph of the first book, Fever, I had the feeling I was back in familiar place. I remembered how much I had liked The Infatuations but I had forgotten the very specific voice Marías writes in. It's a voice that feels very much like my own mind. I read the entire Your Face Tomorrow trilogy over approximately 12 months, spacing the books out and saving volume III to close out and begin a year. I had one other book of Marías' on my shelves at home, Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me, the title of which comes from Richard III, but is also a refrain in the Your Face Tomorrow books. I considered starting Tomorrow in the Battle... several times last year, but I kept not picking it up because I wanted to save it. I didn't want to not have another Marías book at home to read. Then last month, I was reading An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alemeddine – a book for book-lovers if there ever was one – and Marías came up in the text. The narrator of An Unnecessary Woman had translated Marías' A Heart So White into Arabic. I'd had A Heart So White sitting on my PaperbackSwap wishlist for a long time and An Unnecessary Woman provided the nudge I needed to just finally buy it. So one Tuesday after work, I went down to the Strand and I bought A Heart So White and Thus Bad Begins (and a book by Antonio Muñoz Molina, who was also mentioned in An Unnecessary Woman, 3 books by José Saramago – I was just back from visiting his foundation in Lisbon and determined to read more of his books, and a book by Mercè Rodoreda).
After finishing the Alameddine, I was determined to finish two more books from countries I hadn't read before 2018 was up (which I did: I read Nathacha Appanah's The Last Brother (Mauritius) and Ousmane Sembène's God's Bits of Wood (Senegal)) to get to a nice round, but also completely arbitrary, 60 countries on my world reading project. So, I set aside the Marías books as a treat for myself when I had hit that goal. I had to choose between them when I was heading upstate to visit my mother the weekend after Christmas and was fairly sure I would finish God's Bits of Wood while there. I think I grabbed Thus Bad Begins because it was longer and newer. It wasn't quite Gift of the Magi, but it turned out that my mother – with whom I'd never talked about Marías – had come across A Heart So White at the library, read it, and thought I would like it, so she got it for me for Christmas. So, briefly, I had two copies.
I started Thus Bad Begins on the train home from Hudson. Maybe I had built Marías up too much in my mind. I wasn't immediately captivated. Or maybe it was just that I'd had a few drinks before getting on the train. I just read one chapter. It took me 60 pages or so to get back into his rhythm. But I got there. I got lost a couple times. I went back. I reread. In the end, I loved it. I gasped when I read the first line of the last chapter. I almost wanted to go back and start again. But I don't need to right now. I have two more Marías books at home to read.
