The Infatuations

The Infatuations
	First edition (Spanish)
Author	Javier Marías
Original title	Los Enamoramientos
Translator	Margaret Jull Costa
Language	Spanish
Genre	Novel
Set in	Madrid
Publisher	Alfaguara
Publication date	2011
Publication place	Spain
Published in English	2013

The Infatuations (Spanish: Los enamoramientos) is a National Novel Prize-winning novel by Spanish author Javier Marías, published in 2011.^[1] The translation into English by Margaret Jull Costa was published by Hamish Hamilton in 2013.

It was shortlisted for the 2014 National Book Critics Circle Award (Fiction).^[2]^[3]

Plot

The novel tells the story of literary editor María Dolz, who, through the daily vision of a couple in love in her favorite café, perceives a situation that she finds much more pleasant than the bad novels she has to deal with at her job. From one day to the next, however, the couple disappears and Maria learns what happened from the newspaper. The man was Miguel Deverne, a film businessman who was stabbed to death by the vagrant Luis Felipe Vázquez Canella.

Maria tries to get close to Luisa, Miguel's widow, and they become friends. Also in Luisa's entourage is Desvern's best friend, Javier Díaz-Varela, with whom María falls in love, although she quickly realizes that the latter's ties to the young widow are most ambiguous. Javier, once a restless womanizer with no need for commitment, is obsessively in love with Luisa and only awaits the day when the mourning for the loss of her husband subsides. Javier's intense care for Luisa seems suspicious to Maria. Overhearing a conversation, she notices the obvious connection between Miguel's death and Javier. Javier admits to blackmailing the drifter into killing Desvern, which he justifies by citing Miguel's apparently terminal illness. After the failed relationship with Javier, Maria investigates the murder on the internet and is surprised why none of the journalists mention the fateful diagnosis about Miguel. Did Javier want to eliminate a rival? Two years later, Maria attends a business lunch, and a few moments later Luisa and Javier also appear, wearing identical rings. Maria thinks that Javier has achieved his goal.

Reception

The book received generally positive reviews from critics. It was well-received among British press. On The Omnivore, the book received a score of 4.0 out of 5 based on critic reviews.^[4] It was also well-received among American press. According to Book Marks, the book received "rave" reviews based on 21 critic reviews with 15 being "rave" and 5 being "positive" and 1 being "mixed".^[5]

In 2019 it was listed as one of the hundred best books of the 21st century by The Guardian: "Marías constructs an elegant murder mystery from his trademark labyrinthine sentences, but this investigation is in pursuit of much meatier questions than whodunnit."^[6]