The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto by Mario Vargas Llosa sees the Peruvian novelist and Nobel Prize-winner on top form, with a novel at the same time funny, sexy, disquieting and extremely compelling.
Don Rigoberto - by day a grey insurance executive, by night a pornographer and sexual enthusiast - misses Lucrecia, his estranged second wife. The pair separated following a sexual encounter between Lucrecia and Alfonso, Rigoberto's son. To compensate for her absence, Rigoberto fills his notebooks with memories, fantasies and unsent letters. Meanwhile, Alfonso visits Lucrecia, determined to win her love.
In The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto, Mario Vargas Llosa keeps the reader guessing which episodes are real and which issue from Rigoberto's imagination. The novel, a wonderful mix of reality and fantasy, is sexy, funny, disquieting, and unfailingly compelling.
If you enjoyed The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto, you might also like Mario Vargas Llosa's In Praise of the Stepmother.
