Happy families : stories / Carlos Fuentes ; translated by Edith Grossman

Originally published in Spanish as Todas las familias felices by Alfaguara, Mexico City, Mexico, in 2006.

A family like any other -- The disobedient son - A cousin without charm -- Conjugal ties (1) -- Mater Dolorosa -- The mariachi's mother -- Sweethearts -- The armed family -- The gay divorcee -- The official family -- The father's servant -- The secret marriage -- The star's son -- The discomfiting brother -- Conjugal ties (2) -- Eternal Father.

Carlos Fuentes delivers a stunning work of fiction about family and love across an expanse of Mexican life. In these vignettes, Fuentes explores Tolstoy's classic observation that happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. In A Family Like Any Other, each member of the Pagan family lives in isolation, despite share a tiny house. In The Mariachi's Mother, the limitless devotion of a woman is revealed as she secretly tends to her estranged son's wounds. Sweethearts reunites old lovers unexpectedly and opens up the possibilities for other lives and other loves. These are just a few of the remarkable stories in Happy Families, but they all inhabit Fuentes's trademark Mexico, where modern obsessions bump up against those of the mythic past, and the result is a triumphant display of the many ways we reach out to one another and find salvation through irrepressible acts of love. In this spectacular translation, the acclaimed Edith Grossman captures the full weight of Fuentes's range. Whether writing in the language of the street or in straightforward, elegant prose, Fuentes gives us stories connected by love, including the failure of love between spouses, lovers, parents and children, siblings. From the Mexican presidential palace to the novels of the poor and the vast expanse of humanity in between,Happy Families is a portrait of modern life in all its complicated beauty.