Book, Naked Hours, As[LS]

Rosa Ambrósio, a decadent theater actress, reviews, between generous doses of whiskey, the loves of her life. Cousin Miguel, his teenage crush, died of an overdose in his twenties. Gregório, her husband, became a taciturn man after he was tortured by the military dictatorship. Diogo, her lover and last companion, left her for younger girls. Alternating voices and points of view, moving from the internal flow of consciousness to the third-person narrative, Lygia Fagundes Telles attests here to her literary mastery and artistic maturity, bringing into play major themes of our time - the feminist movement, mass culture, AIDS, drugs -, mediated by the individual destinies of a handful of creatures. Originally published in 1989, The Naked Hours has since been hailed as one of the author's most vigorous and subtle novels.