Lizard Tails - Softcover

"It's magnificent. Once you have finished the novel you feel bound to start again, despite the fact that it has been unforgettable" (Vanguardia)

"Juan Marsé [is] among a generation bringing Iberian writing once more to the fore" (Daily Telegraph)

"Hauntingly well written, full of tightly drawn characters, well crafted, rhythmically impeccable. The language is slangy, staccato, dense and smooth, poetic and prosaic... Juan Marsé's contribution to European fiction has been consistently remarkable; Lizard Tails sustains his high reputation" (Times Literary Supplement)

David's alcoholic father, who is being pursued for political reasons, has deserted David and his attractive red-haired mother. David inhabits a fantasy world, fuelled by the films he sees at his local cinema and by images of war - Spitfires crashing into the sea, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima - and by the image of an RAF pilot whose photograph is pinned on his bedroom wall. David and his friend spend their time collecting detachable lizards' tails; symbolic of the detachment and uncertainty which characterises their young lives in troubled post-war Spain.

Lizard Tails was winner of the Spanish National Narrative Prize.