In Praise of the Stepmother - Softcover

Erotic and elegant. (Times)

Llosa has made In Praise of the Stepmother a gallery of sexual fantasies. He shows, brilliantly, how the erotic lies in imagining something other than, and beyond, the object of desire. (Observer)

Startling. (New Yorker)

Seldom have I encountered such a sensorily immediate piece of writing ... The tone is ultimately light and exquisite. The language is fastidious, graceful, and sprinkled with scent. It is an audacious caprice of a book. (Financial Times)

Vargas Llosa has written a genuinely erotic story and a wicked parody of one. (Los Angeles Times)

In Praise of the Stepmother is the story of Don Rigoberto, his second wife, Lucrecia, and his son, Alfonso. Their family life together seems to be a happy one. Rigoberto, an insurance company manager, spends his time preening himself for his wife and collecting erotic art. But while Lucrecia is devoted to him, she has her own needs, and soon finds herself the object of young Alfonso's attention. With meticulous observation and seductive skill, Mario Vargas Llosa explores the mysterious nature of happiness. Little by little, the harmony of his characters is darkened by the shadow of perversion. If you enjoyed In Praise of the Stepmother, you might also like Mario Vargas Llosa's The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto.