Isabel Allende The House Of The Spirits Hardback Book

We begin at the turn of the century, in an unnamed South American country in the childhood home of the woman who will be the mother and grandmother of the clan, Clara del Valle. A warmhearted, hypersensitive girl, Clara has distinguished herself from an early age with her telepathic abilities she can read fortunes, make objects move as if they had lives of their own, and predict the future. Following the mysterious death of her sister, the fabled Rosa the Beautiful, Clara has been mute for nine years, resisting all attempts to make her speak. When she breaks her silence, it is to announce that she will be married soon. Her husbandtobe is Esteban Trueba, a stern, willful man, given to fits of rage and haunted by a profound loneliness. At the age of thirtyfive, he has returned to the capital from his country estate to visit his dying mother and to find a wife. (He was Rosas fianc, and her death has marked him as deeply as it has Clara.) This is the man Clara has foreseen has summoned to be her husband Esteban, in turn, will conceive a passion for Clara that will last the rest of his long and rancorous life. We go with this couple as they move into the extravagant house he builds for her, a structure that everyone calls "the big house on the corner," which is soon populated with Claras spiritualist friends, the artists she sponsors, the charity cases she takes an interest in, with Estebans political cronies, and, above all, with the Trueba children Blanca, a practical,... | Isabel Allende The House Of The Spirits Hardback Book