Naked Men

How far would you go?  Irene's husband has left her for a younger woman and the company she inherited from her beloved father is on the verge of collapse. Javier is a teacher of literature in a convent school who finds himself adrift when he suddenly loses his modest job. Worlds apart, they're both deeply dissatisfied with their existence and desperate for change, and control. Into their lives come the loutish Ivan, a young man from the wrong side of the tracks who enjoys an apparently inexplicable lifestyle of bling, and fifty-something divorcee Genoveva, a woman with few inhibitions and very clear ideas of how to have a good time.Introduced by their new-found friends into the world of male strip clubs and prostitution, Irene and Javier strike up a troubling relationship, teetering between affection and need, domination and self-interest, money and sex. A relationship destined to get ever more complicated, paradoxical, and ultimately tragic as their trajectories collide with tragic consequences.  In the voices of these characters, Alicia Giménez-Bartlett weaves a tale of economic and personal devastation, exploring the ways hardship and circumstance will push people to do things they never would have imagined.  "Giménez-Bartlett has based her contemporary classics on satirizing uncomfortable reality."-El País  "A stark realist portrait of characters who are searching for their place in a world without redemption."-Culturamas "A novel as provocative as it is necessary."-El Mundo