Mascara [Hardcover]

Ariel Dorfman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 27, 1988

Mascara delves into the dark terrain of identity and disguise when the lives of three people collide. A nameless man with a face no one remembers has the devastating ability to see and capture on film the brutal truths lurking inside each person he encounters. Oriana, a beautiful woman with the memory of an innocent child, is relentlessly pursued by mysterious figures from her past. Doctor Mavirelli is a brilliant and power-hungry plastic surgeon who controls society’s most prominent figures by shaping their faces. The twining of these three fates plays out in a climactic unmasking.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Chilean exile Dorfman's latest work (after The Last Song of Manuel Sendero ) is a tantalizingly ambiguous web of deceit, intrigue and obsession, its layers of meaning gradually revealed. The first, and longest, part of the book is a paranoic monologue by a nameless man with a face that no one recognizes or remembers. Never lovedeven by his own motherbecause he is so forgettable, he turns his curse to his advantage and spies on others, blackmailing victims with photographs that he takes just when their faces reveal their true natures. His life of carefully constructed obscurity is threatened when he runs his car into that of Dr. Maleverdi, a famous plastic surgeon. Then Oriana, an amnesiac, is left in his keeping and he falls in love with her. But with Oriana, who is being tracked by two shadowy men, he is no longer unnoticed, and he realizes that someone is subverting his entire network of spies and informants. Just when it seems that the narrator is about to reveal the cause of his persecution, the narration switches to another voice, that of Oriana's real mnemonic being, which the narrator has hoped will never surface. A final section is narrated by Maleverdi, who, it turns out, has known of the faceless man since his birth, and has watched over his whole life. "A Sort of Epilogue" tantalizingly concludesbut doesn't resolvethe story, and the reader is left in delicious puzzlement.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Most of this exploration of memory and identity in an unnamed city is narrated by someone who remembers all faces but who can never be recognized. Although the book was written in English, its title is more appropriate in its Spanish definition, "mask"as evidenced by the narrator's confrontation with a plastic surgeon who can make a politician look like an up-and-coming rival. The novel's conception is interesting but, like much of this brilliant Chilean's fiction, fails to sustain the power of his "poems of disappearance." Still, it includes the wonderful tale of a four-and-a-half-year-old who stopped aging after being molested. This story, told by a part of her that secretly kept growing, explaining that people are at birth issued hands used by those who lived before, is first-rate. Ethan Bumas, Fudan Univ., Shanghai
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult; First Edition edition (October 27, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670823147
• ISBN-13: 978-0670823147
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,001,624 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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