The Family

by Sara Mesa

In this unsettling, interlinked novel, Sara Mesa turns a relentless gaze on a seemingly ordinary family. Patriarch Damián, a secular idealist who constantly quotes Gandhi, imposes a rigid moral order while remaining blind to the cracks in his household. His wife and four children craft elaborate fictions to survive the oppression that permeates their lives, retreating into humiliated compliance or seeking dangerous freedom. Spanning decades, the book explores the ideologies that shape the family, the silences that undermine it, and the inescapable authority that haunts each member, culminating in a startling insight into the father’s misguided convictions.