Swift As Desire: A Novel - Hardcover

The best-selling author of Like Water for Chocolate returns with a poignant and evocative new novel based on the life of her father that follows the fortunes of Don Jubilo, a telegraph operator who follows his destined role of communication conciliator, as his own life parallels the birth, rise, and eventual fall of the telegraph. 250,000 first printing.

ntering the world crying like other babies, Júbilo was born with a smile on his face. He had a gift for hearing what was in people’s hearts, for listening to sand dunes sing and insects whisper. Even as a young boy, acting as an interpreter between his warring Mayan grandmother and his Spanish-speaking mother, he would translate words of spite into words of respect, so that their mutual hatred turned to love. When he grew up, he put his gift to good use in his job as a humble telegraph operator.

But now the telegraph lies abandoned, obsolete as a form of communication in the electronic age, and don Júbilo is on his deathbed, mute and estranged from his beloved wife, Lucha, who refuses to speak to him. What tragic event has come between two such sensuous, loving people to cause their seemingly irreparable rift? What mystery lies behind the death of the son no one ever mentions? Can their daughter bring reconciliation to her parents before it is too late, by acting as an int