Cautery - by Lucía Lijtmaer (Paperback)

About the Book

The difficulty of being a woman in 21st-century Barcelona and 17th-century Massachusetts might only be a few hundred years.

Book Synopsis

Fantasies, or are they premonitions, of a great wave, an impending apocalypse, threaten to swamp a young woman trapped in a slowly curdling relationship. From the outside it all looks good - the casually elegant apartment, the cocktail parties, the impressive, creative friends - but for all her supposed freedom, her unhappiness means she's not living up to her side of the bargain. Why, everyone asks, is this not enough?Four hundred years earlier, formidable, irascible Deborah Moody marries, is disappointed, is widowed, loses a child, loses everything, and flees England for the Massachusetts Bay Colony. She finds her fortune there, but if relying on a husband proved a mistake, independence doesn't mean freedom from the dangerous vanities of men.Funny, cutting, and a savage indictment of the cheap consolations of meme-ified faux feminism, misplaced solidarity, and sacrifices for the supposed greater good, Cautery offers us two women (one based on a historical figure, one imagined) who share a final vision of true happiness - burning it all down and beginning again.

Review Quotes

"There's beauty, power and violence in these women's stories; and their desires - whether for freedom or revenge - burn a hot, bloody red... A superb debut." --The Telegraph

"Never heavy but ultimately satisfying, this is literary fiction done to the highest standards yet without pretension." --Never Imitate

"A powerful book [that] manages something I've never really read before. I was entranced." --Mark Haber, author of LESSER RUINS

"A searing, twisted feast." --Laura Fernández

"Lucía Lijtmaer is a powerful voice." --Enrique Vila-Matas, author of DUBLINESQUE

"Lucía Lijtmaer constructs a story that is not only moving and imaginative but also indispensable." --Agustín Fernández Mallo, author of NOCILLA TRILOGY

"Sharply drawn scenes, packed with lyrical introspection and a cutting tone... [the characters] are rendered with refreshing honesty." --Frieze

"A display of talent and skill. A novel that signals, wounds, accompanies and unsettles." --El País

"In spite of its swift prose and constant play with black humour and an occasionally brutal mordacity, [the book] overflows with the complexity typical of one of the most perceptive socio-cultural analysts on the contemporary intellectual scene." --Contrapunto

"The novel works like the surgical instrument that gives it its name: it is able to open the flesh and make a wound, and then cauterise it, causing a burning that heals as it vanishes." --eldiario.es

"Masterful." --Clarín

"Lijtmaer's most ambitious novel since she began her literary career." --Infobae

"The intelligent construction and well-crafted prose makes this a captivating story." --Diario Cine y Literatura CL

About the Author

Lucía Lijtmaer (Buenos Aires, 1977) grew up in Barcelona. She is a writer and cultural critic. She has published the chronicles Quiero los secretos del Pentágono (I Want the Pentagon's Secrets) (2015), Casi nada que ponerte (Hardly Anything to Wear) (2016) and the essays Yo también soy una chica lista (I'm a Smart Girl, Too) (2017), Cultura en Tensión (Culture in Tension) (2016) and Ofendiditos, la criminalización de la protesta (Offended: the Criminalization of Protest) (2019). She regularly writes for El País, El Periódico de Catalunya, and collaborates with RAC1. She's the curator of the festival of guerrilla and feminist culture 'Princesses and DarthVaders', and together with Isa Calderón, she codirects the cultural podcast 'Deforme Semanal' on Radio Primavera Sound, winner of the 2021 Ondas Award for Best Podcast and of the 2022 Ondas Globales Prize for the Podcast.

Maureen Shaughnessy is a writer and translator from Spanish. Her work has appeared in The Paris Review, Brick, AGNI and Asymptote . In 2023, her translation of Belén López Peiró's Why Did You Come Back Every Summer received an English PEN Translates Award. She lives in Bariloche, Argentina.