In the Night of Time Book

The Spanish Civil War is a big topic that requires a big canvas. Molina’s epic, tragic tale of one man’s experiences in love and war — a bourgeois architect is shaken to the core by his homeland’s changing politics and an adulterous tryst with an American woman — gives its subject the space it deserves and renders it vibrantly with intoxicating prose. Unfortunately, as with most intoxicants, too much gives you a hangover. The swirlingly ornate writing style and nonchronological plotting lend In the Night of Time the pace of a narcotized elephant. B-