A review by extemporalli
Mal de pedres by Milena Agus

5.0

A short and not-so-sweet novella about the writer's boy-crazy, nearly-an-old maid grandmother and her lost love from the seaside. Yikes! I wasn't sure how I felt about the novel until that cruel, cruel ending, which seemed to me to underline the rest of the story (a sharp, stark little outline which somehow has more imagery in its little finger than in the whole of another novel) in red. I'll definitely look out for more of Agus's work, in translation. Relatedly: Ann Goldstein, who translates Elena Ferrante's work, translated this into English as well. Reading her translation of another author's really brought home to me how good she is at this, I think.