My review of Álvaro Enrigue’s latest novel has gone up over at Literal Magazine. I loved Enrigue’s last novel, “Sudden Death,” in part because I’m a long time tennis player, but also because few authors I’ve read seem to really nail historical fiction in the way he does—by achieving a voice to the writing that makes the characters and situations truly feel like they happened a long time ago. (Hilary Mantel was one of the others.)
You’ll have to read the review to see if I liked “You Dreamed of Empires” as much as “Sudden Death.” Writing the review was mostly a battle with autocorrect for correctly spelling “Enrigue” and not “Enrique.”