While the Women Are Sleeping

Slippery figures in anomalous situations -- ghosts, spies, bodyguards, criminals -- haunt these stories by Javier Marías: the characters come bearing their strange and special secrets, and never leave our minds. In one story, a man obsessed with his much younger lover endlessly videotapes her every move, and then confides his surprising plans for her; in another a ghost can't stop resigning from his job. Masterfully, Marías manages in a small space to perplex and delight. "The short story fits Marías like a glove," as Le Point noted. His stories have been hailed as "formidably intelligent" (The London Review of Books), "a bracing tonic" (Chicago Tribune), and "startling" (The New York Times Book Review).