A few minutes later a young man rushed in and sat down nearby. Estela felt her agitation and the altered rhythm of her breathing. On the screen, the vampire stalked the girl in a sensual and dramatic way, his shadow hovering over the woman’s white skin as she closed her eyes feeling the pleasure of blood, death, and possession. Estela knew that the man was touching himself, giving himself the pleasure that to her was forbidden and that was now just a few feet away. The tremor reached her gently and smoothly and altered the rhythm of her breathing as much as that of the stranger, who kept his eyes fixed on the actress’s neck, breaking backwards, moaning and falling languidly into the vampire’s arms.
This is the story of a family that emerges thanks to the early vision of the mother determined to ensure the economic future of her children. The narrator knows each detail and without euphemisms, with a stark realism, we confide the story of these characters: men and women apparently “very ordinary”, but at the time of the story they become unique and important.
"(...) Other men abound in these pages – uncles, suitors, sons-in-law to come – but the hard core of the story are the women, and the Chilean man becomes a large and hesitant child. Written with ease and intensity, Las Marías is another point of view on the evolution of Chilean society. Through a woman’s eye."
Artemio Echegoyen, literary critic.