House of Mist by Maria-Luisa Bombal
Summary (from the publisher): House of Mis t stands as one of the first South American novels written in the style that was later called magical realism. Of this story of a young bride struggling with her marriage to an aloof landowner—and the mysteries surrounding their life together—in a house deep in the lush Chilean woods, Penelope Mesic wrote in the Chicago Tribune that Bombal showed "bold disregard for simple realism in favor of a heightened reality in which the external world reflects the internal truth of the characters' feeling . . . mingling . . . fantasy, memory and event." Review: House of Mist is a Chilean mystery that is said to be written in the style in what is now known as magical realism. However, I would describe it as a gothic romance. Amazingly, it was originally written in Spanish. Rather than simple translate it, she rewrote it in English. The book follows a young bride struggling in marriage to her distant husband and isolated at his home dee...
