The Infatuations

The Infatuations is a 2013 mystery novel by Spanish author Javier Marias. Set in Madrid, it concerns a woman named Maria Dolz who hears about the fatal, seemingly random stabbing of a patron at a cafe that she frequents. Her idealization of the man’s life, which she weaved together over many days on her way to work, breaks down when she approaches his widow: suddenly, she is entangled in a murder mystery, and even falls in love with someone who played a sinister role. The novel can be considered postmodern in its stylistic emphasis on the malleability of truth through narrative forms, but also deals with classic themes, including guilt, mortality, and identity.

The Infatuations is told from Maria’s perspective as she recalls how the murder mystery unfolded and permanently impacted her life. At its opening, Maria is a young, innocent woman with a positive disposition that borders on naivety. She lives a meager and unexciting life in Madrid, where she works as a clerk at a publishing press. Each morning before work, she stops at the same cafe. She relishes the recurring moment, for a certain couple, the Desverns, visit the cafe at the same time like clockwork to eat breakfast. The Desverns appear, to Maria, to be “perfect.” Over time, Maria becomes completely engrossed in her private narrative about the couple; they bring her a happiness (though quaint and inaccessible) that the rest of her life does not.

Years pass, and the couple returns to the cafe day after day, until Maria notices them missing. When she inquires about them, her coworker tells her that the husband, Miguel, was fatally stabbed on the street by an unknown assailant that escaped. Maria tracks down Miguel’s wife, Luisa, and offers her condolences. Luisa thanks her and invites her into her house, introducing her to Javier, who was Miguel’s closest friend. Maria is immediately taken with Javier, who represents in her mind the romance and spontaneity she has missed out on in life. They start to date; however, Javier never shows more than a superficial interest in Maria. Maria discovers that Javier is, in fact, in love with Luisa.



Once, when Maria is in Javier’s bedroom, she overhears Javier and a man named Ruiberriz talk at length about a risky job they worked on. She realizes, with shock, that they are discussing Miguel’s murder. Maria grows sick with the thought that Javier killed the man who trusted him as his best friend. Still, she is unable to be disloyal to Javier and turn him in, for she is too compromised by her unreciprocated obsession with him. After this incident, several weeks pass, and Javier does not contact Maria. At last, he calls her, and pleads with her to come to his house. Again she dutifully follows his lead. Javier tells Maria that his “admission” of Miguel’s murder is not as it seemed. He alleges that Miguel learned that he was terminally ill and asked his best friend to kill him to eliminate the agonizing and inevitable deterioration.

Several more years pass. Blinded by her hopeless love for Javier, Maria struggles to accept the obvious fact that he killed Miguel for personal gain. At last, she reaches a psychological turning point and accepts the truth; still, she does not intervene in Luisa’s life. At the end of the novel, while walking one evening in the city, Maria passes Luisa and Javier dining at a restaurant wearing their new wedding rings. She stops for a moment, contemplating whether to finally tell Luisa about Miguel’s complicity, then continues on. In this instant, she concedes that she will always be hopelessly in love with Javier and unable to hold him accountable for the truth. In its fateful twists, turns, and resolution, The Infatuations illuminates how emotions have as much sway over stories and human relationships as objective truth.