Michael Greenberg at the NYT:
What is most jarring is that the story has all the hallmarks of García Márquez; despite its deficiencies, the writing is unmistakably his. At its center is Ana Magdalena Bach, who is a virgin when she marries and remains contentedly faithful to her husband until, at 46, she embarks on a series of explosive one-night stands, a new one each year. She meets the men, all of them strangers, during solo visits to the Caribbean island where her mother is buried. Without fail, every Aug. 16 she lays a bouquet of fresh gladioli on her mother’s grave, clears the weeds that have sprung up around the stone and quickly fills her mother in on the latest family news. Then she gets down to the serious business of finding a partner until morning, when a ferry will take her back to the mainland.
Her first tryst is with a silver-haired “Hispanic gringo” she picks up at her hotel bar. The sex is impersonal and, for Ana, immensely exciting: She “devoured him for her own pleasure not even thinking of his.” The next morning she’s appalled to discover he left her a $20 bill. The insult infuriates her and she is tormented by both a wish for revenge and the desire to repeat the evening.
more here.