NEVER TO RETURN

paper 0-8032-9438-7 Never To Return ($40.00; paper $15.00; 194 pp.; Aug. 18; 0-8032-4433-9; paper 0-8032-9438-7). Spanish author Tusquets’ fourth novel, first published in 1985, is part of an ambitious series portraying the nature of contemporary womanhood’specifically, the experiences of women as daughters, wives, and mothers in a tradition-bound patriarchal society. Here, we have the story of 50-year-old Elena’s adaptation to empty-nest syndrome, her husband Julio’s flagrant unfaithfulness, and a deepening depression that sends her into increasingly revelatory encounters with a famed Argentine psychoanalyst (“the Wizard”). Boldly risking flatness and redundancy, Tusquets instead subtly builds a touching, bawdy, and often very funny characterization of a woman who’s had it with insensitive males and finds ways to free her impatient body and spirit. Whether or not you respond to Tusquets’ implicit agenda, you won’t be able to resist Elena.