Deambrosis, Mercedes

PERSONAL:

Female.

CAREER:

Writer.

WRITINGS:

Un après-midi avec Rock Hudson (novel), Buchet Chastel (Paris, France), 2001, translation by Mike Mitchell published as An Afternoon with Rock Hudson, Dedalus (Sawtry, Cambridgeshire, England), 2006.

Suite et Fin au Grand Condé, Buchet-Chastel (Paris, France), 2002.

Milagrosa (novel), Dedalus (Sawtry, Cambridgeshire, England), 2002.

El Paseo De Las Delicias, Alianza Editorial (Madrid, Spain), 2005.

La plieuse de parachutes: Roman (novel; title means "The Folding Machine of Parachutes"), Buchet-Chastel (Paris, France), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Mercedes Deambrosis is a French writer and novelist of Spanish and Greek descent whose novel, Milagrosa, is about Maria de los Milagros, known as Milagrosa. The story follows the young, shy girl growing up in late-1960s Spain in a small town where her feisty mother has retreated to after losing her job as a teacher because she assaulted the town's mayor. Since Milagrosa's father did not want to move, her mother left him behind as well. After Milagrosa's mother dies, she faces a changing and tumultuous Spain and a family fight over inheritance. A Kirkus Reviews contributor called the novel "an exceptional debut, sensitive and rich without sentimentality."

In An Afternoon with Rock Hudson, Deambrosis writes about an encounter between two women who knew each other in high school and meet some forty years later. Taking place within twenty-four hours, the encounter between Carmen, a spinster schoolteacher, and Dorita, wife of a rich cardiologist, highlights Dorita's vacuous life despite her seeming success and wealth, a fact displayed by Dorita's criticisms of Carmen and her pathetic attempt at seducing a young man at a bar. Meanwhile, the reader learns that Carmen has faults of her own and is a hiding a secret from her past. Noting that the author avoids a clichéd ending, a Kirkus Reviews contributor also wrote that the novel "accomplishes quite a bit within its limited boundaries" and called An Afternoon with Rock Hudson "slim but potent."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 2002, review of Milagrosa, p. 1249; January 1, 2006, review of An Afternoon with Rock Hudson, p. 7.

L'Humanite, June 22, 2006, Pascal Jourdana, "A Life Reduced to Nothing," review of La plieuse de parachutes: Roman.